Beets—Not Just for Salad Anymore

Dec-30-12 As an alternative to salt, New York State will be using a mix of beet juice and brine to help keep highways ice-free.

Beet juice is able to delay icing, and mixing it with salt increases its ice-resisting abilities. The brine can be prepared in advance and applied to roads before temperatures drop, which also makes it a preventative solution rather simply a reaction to ice that has already formed. And since beets are natural and non-toxic, the solution is safer for the environment and less corrosive to roads.

The beet juice-brine mix has already been used on roads for a the past few years, and its success has prompted New York State to apply 50,000 gallons of it on the New York State Thruway as a test of its anti-icing properties.

Image: Tracy Olson

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