Hey #Ontario friends, take this chance to do something nice for the environment that is simple and fast! Right here is a petition to look into alternatives to road salt, which is toxic and polluting the Great Lakes. Given current #water issues, this is pretty important, I think.
https://saltcoalition.ca/#leaders
@ontario @OntarioNDP #GreatLakes #RoadSalt #Salt #Ice #WaterRights #FreshWater #WaterRestrictions
Road salt is a vile abomination that is a secret subsidy to the car industry. Learn to drive on snow and ice, require proper tires to drive on snow and ice, and most importantly give people reasons not to drive in snow and ice (oh look, back-to-office mandates!). Declare a fucking snow day sometimes. Adjust working hours to give plows time to work. There are places in this country where it is too cold for salt to even work. They still survive and function every winter, and so should we. Destroying the roads, the cars, the environment, and apparently lately even the electric grid, and spending millions to do it, is not an answer. It is madness.
I grew up and learned to drive in one of those parts of the province that are too cold sometimes for salt to be effective (up on the Arctic watershed), and it isn’t quite as simple as you might want to think.
In deep January cold, most roads were sanded rather than salted . . . but that only works if you’re dealing with snow rather than ice. The gravel gets incorporated into the snow as it packs down, resulting in a less-slippery surface (although it still isn’t great), but on ice, it slides right off. When you have to deal with ice during the slightly warmer periods, you need a melter. Guess what the cheapest one is? It also has one of the widest temperature ranges over which it remains effective, so it’s the most likely to work after an abrupt flash-freeze. They use a lot less salt up there than they used to, but the MTO still has to go through many tons of it every year to keep the highways open. Without it, it would be possible for some towns to be isolated for weeks.
Add to that, drivers who aren’t familiar with the conditions. Especially commercial drivers. Highway 11 has been having really awful problems lately with transport trucks being involved in various sorts of accidents. And to be honest, there tends to be a bit of a fender-bender period around November where some of the locals have to regain their winter driving skills.
There should probably be tighter guidelines on where, when, and how to use road salt, but completely eliminating it throughout Ontario is probably Not Practical right now.
(And by the way, that gravel? Also a pollutant of sorts that has to be cleaned up when the thaws come. On the highways it eventually becomes one with the gravel shoulders, but in town it has to be swept up and carted away so that it doesn’t block the storm sewers or anything like that. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.)
This is much needed, but im confused by all the municipalities signed on to the resolution that use insane amounts of salt on roads and sidewalks (like Toronto). Surely they have the ability to reduce salt usage before waiting for some lackluster action from the province
And destroying our cars requiring more frequent replacement.
@arielkroon @ontario @OntarioNDP
we always used sand in my hometown
