Why Use Beet Sugar for Snow Removal Instead of Brine?

Why use beet sugar for snow removal instead of brine? Beet sugar tends to be better for the environment and a healthier, safer solution for snow removal. There are several reasons why that is the case and why should you use beet sugar for snow removal instead of brine.

The use of a solution made out of the sugar left over from sugar beets as they are processed and a salt brine is becoming vastly popular in the northern states that receive moderate to heavy snowfalls every year.

Beet Sugar and Salt Brine

The increased popularity of using beet sugar is occurring because of the positive effects the beet sugar has compared to strictly using the salt brine:

• Salt brine has been proven to be a contributing factor in the raised chlorine levels in lakes because of the excess brine runoff.
• Rock salt dispensed after the brine treatment further does not stick to the roads and raises the chlorine levels.
• Beet sugar has proven to be effective in making the majority of the rock salt adhere to the surfaces it is intended to keep snow and ice from building up on.

All of these are good reasons to use beet sugar for snow removal instead of brine alone.

Beet Sugar Instead of Salt Brine

Using beet juice in place of salt brines and calcium chloride products has more advantages than it first appears as well, some of them even coming from the color.

• When beet juice is sprayed on top of snow that has already fallen, it turns a brownish hue, which aids in the absorption of heat.
• Snow melts faster, running off of roadways and clearing them without the use of salts, which can damage vehicles and street equipment.

This is yet another reason why use beet sugar instead of brine.

Using Beet Sugar in Place of Brine

Though most of the communities that currently utilize a mixture of the beet sugar and the salt brine, some are changing their policies to use only the beet sugar solution because of its environmental advantages, along with the fact that it has proven to be more effective than salt brine in the aspect of preventing ice formation and snow layering on highways and streets.

Most of the communities that still use the mixture of the two solutions do so in order to both keep their budgets reasonable, as well as to use any stock of the brine solution they may have left from previous years. 

How Using Beet Sugar Works

So, you know now why use beet sugar instead of brine when removing snow... but how does beet sugar actually work to get rid of snow? Beet sugar works to de-ice roads and prevent icing on highways because of the same type of chemical reaction caused by the introduction of salt.

When the beet sugar is introduced, it prevents water from freezing at much lower temperatures than usual, even lower than that of salt water. Thus, when roads are treated with the solution prior to a snowfall, the accumulation of the snow on the roadways simply does not occur.