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Don’t Rock the Salt!

This season, Clean Ocean Action is offering tips on how to green your holiday. Here is the eighth of twelve in COA's '12 Days of Green Giving' series.

By: Sean Dixon, Coastal Policy Attorney

Picture this (or look outside) – it’s cold, dark, and snowing.  Maybe it is also sleeting, or both.  Now, imagine you have to head out to work, or welcome some friends over for dinner.  The road are icy and your sidewalk treacherous.  What’s your solution? Spread some salt! Call the salt trucks! Melt that ice and say hello to easy driving and safe steps.  Right?

Wrong.

The way rock salt for melting ice works is that the salts themselves reduce the melting point of water – so instead of 32 degrees, water around the salt crystals will melt at a lower temperature (like 25 degrees).  If it’s -20 degrees, well, then you probably don’t want to go out anyways, and your normal rock salt won’t work.  During the summer, in most parts of the urban landscape, over-use of fertilizers can be what leads to significant local water quality problems.  Fertilizers can also be bad for your soil and for your pets.  Rock salt is the winter version of fertilizer, and can cause a host of problems:

First, rock salt is bad for your pets.  

The crystals can get ingested (they stick to paws, fur to be eaten later indoors, or eaten while in the ice and snow) and can lead to burned skin (apparently, the crystals can reach over 150 degrees!).  It’s also bad for other wild animals – in natural ecosystems, salt is a rare commodity and deposits of salt, called “salt licks,” are the coffee shops of the animal world.  Road salt in many places can attract animals to roadways, endangering both the wildlife and drivers.

Second, it can be really bad for drinking water and water quality.  

According to a Stormwater journal article, the New York City watershed (from which all NYC’ers get their tap water), there are “approximately 6,000 mi. of paved roadways in the watersheds, where road-salt application ranges from 37 to 298 tons/lane-mi./yr.”  That’s upwards of 300 tons per mile per lane deposited through the watershed!  The USEPA warns that salt in drinking water can impair water quality to the point where it’s dangerous for aquatic life, corrodes drinking water infrastructure, and endangers human health. 

In 2010, in New Jersey, a Times of Trenton article that “Road salt already has caused problems in some drinking-water supplies in Bergen and Morris counties.  Mahwah stopped using one of its 12 municipal wells years ago because of a high sodium content officials believe came from road salt dumped on Route 17.” According to the article, the state DEP thinks that “up to 60 percent of road salt infiltrates ground water.”

Third, it’s bad for soils.  

In some cases, soils have been tested at double the levels considered too high for normal bacteria functions.  Without healthy bacteria, soils become dirt, dust, and then run off into waters – losses for agriculture, parks, habitat, and downstream water quality.  Salt in soils is also bad for plants – inhibiting long-term growth, causes chlorine toxicity in leaves, and creates micro-drought conditions.

Fourth, it’s really bad for our infrastructure.  

Most people from wintry areas know that salt is bad for your car (corroding the undercarriage), but it’s also really bad for concrete and pavement.  Basically, the way it works is that your melted ice becomes really, really salty water – and that salty water (at the microscopic scale) enters micro-holes in concrete (concrete is full of these mini-holes, called pores).  Once inside the concrete, that salty water re-freezes (usually at night when temperatures drop).  Frozen salt water expands and creates salt particles – both of which are bad for your sidewalk, causing pits and cracks.

According to an August 2010 USEPA factsheet, over 15 million tons of rock salt are spread on our pavement, sidewalks, and parking lots each year.  What’s to be done?

Fortunately, there are a few solutions, though as one blog puts it, “you probably won’t like to hear” the best solution…shovel more!

Ideally, the best solutions are simple: shovel snow off your driveway so that it doesn't melt and freeze into dangerous ice, don’t use rock salt (or any salt), and put boots on your pets if you’re walking on other people’s sidewalks where there is rock salt.  This keeps your pets, your soils, your drinking water, you, and your concrete happy and healthy! 

To avoid slipping, you can use cat litter, sand, or sawdust to coat your icy pavement, or build your walkways out of gravel or rocks – avoiding the problem altogether.

Finally, one amazingly cool (or warm?) solution is also an energy efficiency one: use excess heat from power plants or geothermal heat to melt snow and ice! 

Heated sidewalks and driveways are all the rage in many colder cities and towns. In Holland, Ohio, in 1988, the city’s leaders (with a substantial private donation) converted all of their downtown’s public walkways to heated-sidewalks by piping hot water from the nearby power plant through pipes under the pavement.  The call this the “snowmelt” system, and claim it can melt 1 inch of snow per hour at 15-20 degrees F.  This is hot water that would have to be cooled anyways, so the town gets an added benefit!  Over 120 miles of tubes keep the sidewalks walkable all winter long.  Homes and small businesses can do this too – and can tie it into geothermal systems to use the ground’s natural warmth to keep the surfaces ice-free!

O Tannenbaum! Eco-friendly, chic decorations for the SEAson

This season, Clean Ocean Action is offering tips on how to green your holiday. Here is the first of twelve in COA's '12 Days of Green Giving' series.

O Tannenbaum!  Eco-friendly, chic decorations for the SEAson

By: Diana Reinhardt Paradis, Manager of Development and External Affairs

I love the scent of a real Christmas tree.  It makes a home feel ready for the holiday.  But what type of tree is the greenest option?   Should I purchase a natural tree or an artificial tree?  

This bulb tree might live
in your backyard for years.

When shopping for a Christmas tree, there are many factors to consider.  Natural Christmas trees are chopped down (often from Christmas tree farms) and usually shipped long distances, but forever artificial trees can contain plastic and chemicals and are often made overseas and then shipped long distances to your home. 

If you decide on a natural tree for your home, buy locally.  New Jersey is the Garden State!   There are wonderful Jersey-grown trees available.  When the holiday season is over, many towns will pick up your tree and turn it into mulch.  Trees are chipped, mixed with leaves, and recycled into rich compost for parks, institutions, and community gardens. Your tree will be part of the soil when flowers bloom this spring in your town.  Remember to remove all lights, tinsel, ornaments, the tree stand, and plastic from your tree before setting it out at the curb for collection. 

My little reindeer!

If you choose an artificial tree, make sure it becomes a family heirloom used for generations, instead of sending it to a landfill. These days, some artificial trees are sold with built-in LED lights – and LED lights save electricity.  Plus, you avoid the old, “one goes out, they all go out” light string trap!  Some of these newer trees even work by a remote control – no more stooping to ‘turn on the tree’. 

Another option is to purchase a living tree. Find a bulb tree (with the roots wrapped in burlap or other preserving fabric) at your local garden center and decorate it for the season, then plant it outdoors.  Mark a special milestone like a wedding, anniversary or the birth of a child or grandchild, or just start a new tradition.  The most successful way to bring a living tree indoors for the holiday is to keep the tree in a room that isn’t very warm (away from fireplaces and kitchens) and keep the tree well watered.  Bulb trees come in all sizes, and several smaller trees grouped together would make a stunning decoration. 

Modern décor more your style?  Use an unusual material to build your tree, like metal or cardboard.  You can also fit more ornaments on a metal tree than one with branches and can even be used for other events during the year, depending on the style. Cardboard trees can be very chic; check out sites like www.Pinterest.com to be inspired by amazingly creative designs made from recycled cardboard. 

If you want to get really creative, make a tree from up-cycled, weathered wood. It may not be traditional, but it can become your new eco-friendly tradition. Or you can use the trimmings for a special display.  Last year, my husband and I built a reindeer out of the leftover stumps and branches from our live tree – and the results were adorable!  Old buttons were used for the eyes and a washer my husband had laying around made a nose for Rudolph. 

Jack Johnson’s Christmas Tree

This year, I was inspired by an article I read in Coastal Living about musician Jack Johnson’s laid back style of decorating.  A COA supporter, Jack is an active surfer living in Hawaii.  After a storm, he took his family to the beach, and found some wood and debris.

"I think it was pieces of somebody's turquoise plywood deck that had been all beaten up and washed around, so it looked really neat—it was all weather worn, and it was Kim's (Jack’s wife) favorite color, so I turned it into a tree."  The tree is now decorated with other items found on the beach by the Johnson family, which they recycled into ornaments.  You can read more about the Johnson family holiday traditions at www.CoastalLiving.com. 

No matter what you choose for your home this year, you can make it greener with a little time and creativity.