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December 4, 2008 5:54:31 PM CST



Icy Roads? Beet Juice Just the Right Tonic

Posted Mar 14, 08 6:46 PM CDT in Science & Health US 

(Newser) – Road workers in the Chicago area are shaking up their winter ice-busting cocktail with an odd new mixer: beet juice. Sanitation officials are pleased with the combination, which reduces the necessary rock salt (harmful to plants and water supplies) by up to 30% and is effective at temperatures far lower than salt alone, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Runoff from de-iced roads is a problem in the area, damaging plants and radically increasing salt levels in waterways. Even so, environmentalists are wary of the reduced-salt mixtures, which “may have new, as well as unknown, effects of their own.” Another wrinkle: Beet juice ups the price of de-icing compounds, and may cause “some sort of film on windshields.”

Source Chicago Tribune

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Icy roads are being attacked with a new weapon: the sugar beet.   (AP Photo/Raytheon Antarctic Services, Allen Delaney, HO)
Road crews are turning to unconventional deicers, like beet juice, to reduce salt use and increase effectiveness.   (AP Photo/The Oklahoman, Jim Beckel)
Sugar beets are being juiced to augment and replace rock salt in deicing compounds in the Midwest.   (AP Photo/Bob Child)
Pedestrians come to the aid of police who managed to get their cruiser stuck in snow and ice during a storm. Winter storms have pummeled the Midwest this winter.   (AP Photo/Mike Levy)
Commuters battle a winter storm Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008 in downtown Chicago. The area is rolling out a new deicing compound with beet juice to decrease salt use.   (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
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