What environmentally friendly de-icing products are available for home and office use?
Organically based substances like CMA and potassium acetate are definite improvements over salt or sand in terms of corrosiveness and environmental safety, but they do remove oxygen from bodies of water into which they are sometimes washed. They also are more expensive, although the cost will vary significantly by region. Generally, the more environmentally friendly and less corrosive a product is, the more it costs. Safe Thaw, also known as Safe Paw, was first developed as a commercial product for airports and atomic power plants. Their stringent regulations required a lower melting temperature and non-corrosive factors on concrete and metals. It also had to be safe around humans, animals and vegetation, and contains no salts. If you have a very small area to de-ice and opt to use salt, follow advice from Wilfrid Nixon, professor of civil, environmental and mechanical engineering at the University of Iowa. “You should only use 0.08 of an ounce of salt per square foot,” he says. So, mu
