Reducing Use of Deicing Salt for Businesses & Custodial Staff
Why are we concerned about salt use on hard surfaces during winter?
During winter months, business parking lots and sidewalks must be kept free of snow and ice to allow customers safe access. These areas are often salted due to liability risks associated with slip and fall accidents. At the same time, businesses incur costs associated with buildings and other infrastructure that deteriorate prematurely and/or become unsafe as a result of salt degradation. The good news is that businesses can keep surfaces free of ice and snow while also limiting their use of salt. This can save time, money, and help to protect the environment and infrastructure!
To minimize salt used during winter, business owners can take the following actions:
Reduce the area that is shoveled and salted – While ingress and egress to businesses is critical for customer safety, if a business has multiple sidewalks that all lead to a single door, owners and managers might consider if it may be possible to shovel and salt only one of those pathways during winter months. Reducing the area maintained can significantly reduce use of salt.
Shovel first – In areas that are maintained in winter, business owners and managers should always shovel before adding salt. By removing the snow first, it will take less salt to treat the area and the salt will work more quickly.
Consider snow melt pathways when positioning snow piles – Shovel or plow snow into piles in areas where the snow melt will not drain across pathways that customers generally follow to enter or leave the business. Such preventative action will reduce salt use as the melt water will not become a hazard to customers if it freezes at night or on colder days.
Try anti-icing – Consider spreading a 23.3% mixture of salt and water on sidewalks and parking lots ahead of snow storms. The goal is to prevent the bond between the ice or snow and the pavement. This makes it easier to shovel or plow, reducing the amount of salt needed. Liquid salt brine can be purchased pre-made to make this simple for business owners.
Use alternative products – Many deicing products contain chloride, which is a pollutant of primary concern in surface water bodies and drinking water wells. However, there are other non-chloride-based products, such as sodium and potassium acetate, which are effective at keeping icy surfaces at bay. However, they tend to be more expensive than salt, which often limits their use.
Maintain 3-inch spacing between grains of salt – For businesses that may salt sidewalks, entry areas, or parking lots by hand, a rule of thumb is that grains of salt should be no closer than 3 inches apart. Another guideline is to use no more than 1 to 1.5 cups of salt per every two parking lot spaces or 10 sidewalk squares.
Use an infrared thermometer – Businesses can use a handheld infrared thermometer to determine the pavement temperature. Only use sodium chloride (rock salt) if pavement temperature is above 15F. If the pavement temperature is above 32F and the day is forecast to only get warmer, salting is not needed until temperatures are forecast to drop below 32F. Pavement temperature can also be used to determine how much salt (sodium chloride) to spread.
Use less salt when pavement temperatures are warmer – When the pavement is 30F, 1 pound of sodium chloride (salt) will melt about 46 pounds of ice in 5 minutes, but when the pavement temperature is 15F, 1 pound of salt will melt only about 6 pounds of ice in an hour. Business owners or managers and contractors can use our handy deicing product calculator to determine how much salt is recommended based on conditions at the site and the product being used to prevent ice formation and build up. Also, you can refer to the which shows the range of amounts of salt needed and times to melt ice at varied pavement temperatures. Products other than sodium chloride must be used to prevent ice formation when pavement temperatures are below 15F as sodium chloride is no longer effective at such temperatures.
Sweep up extra salt and reuse it – If too much salt is accidentally during one storm and piles of salt are left on the pavement following the storm, businesses can sweep up the extra salt and reuse it during a future storm. If it is left on the pavement, it will move with snow melt or stormwater runoff to nearby vegetation, to a local storm drain (that generally enter directly to water bodies without treatment), or directly into a local water body.
Business owners and managers can commit to moving their business towards using more salt savvy and sustainable practices. to reducing salt as a business representative or individually.
How-Tos for Custodians and Others Managing Building Entryways
In the following videos, made in partnership with University of Vermont custodial staff and with support of NEIWPCC and the Lake Champlain Basin Program, Michael White shares tips for using a liquid product called Entry and general salt application and clean up guidelines for custodians and other professionals who have responsibility to manage snow and ice outside of building entryways.
This video is also available as two separate videos - one with the basic tips about salting and clean up, and the other about using Entry. We translated it into four other languages that are the most common languages spoken among University of Vermont custodians.
