Once Winter arrives people tend to go crazy in order to get rid of the ice they see on the streets. Utilizing salt is one of the most useful ways to melt ice. However, there’s no need to pour tons of salt on your block to melt the ice. It is important to know how much salt you’re going to utilize because the more we harm the environment the more dangerous it will be for us to live in.
There are good advantages to using rock salt mostly during the Winter season. Salt surely does lower the freezing point of water. In this case, water tends to become ice due to the cold weather. Rock salt is also known as Sodium Chloride. The freezing point is 32F (Fahrenheit), so when temperature water reaches freezing point free-flowing molecules, then it’s get rapped in the organized crystal structure (John H. Abel,2015). Now, salt takes lower energy in which the more salt is being added for particles to come together to create solid ice, then the salt disrupts that process which is the freezing point. Making it block or slow down the liquid molecules from becoming part of ice (John H. Abel, 2015). Salt can be a better chemical advantage because it uses two more ions when it dissolves, it gets more melting power for the handful of ice.
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Rock salt may be very useful to melt ice but it affects our environment. Research says that salt can only act up if ice is above 16F (Fahrenheit). Below that temperature, there’s a chance that it won’t work. One of the big harm that it causes is death plants. Once rock salt is to be put on the ground it dissolves in the soil making it dehydrate the plants, and kills them. Raised salt concentrations can reduce water circulation in lakes and ponds because salt affects water’s density (Erick Elgin, 2018). Not only does it kill pants but small aquatic creatures and even pets such as dogs that walk over the streets with rock salt, making their paws get scratched or irritate their underneath paw. Since rock salt gets carried away during a rainy winter storm that’s where salt gets absorbed in the soil making plants absorb and dry off. Right after salt dissolves it gets split into sodium and chloride and then gets carried away in runoff and deposited unto both surface water like streams, lakes, and rivers.
Reduces Collisions and the less ice there is on streets the fewer deaths occur. Salt has saved a lot of lives by avoiding slippery roads. As said in an article, “During Winter road crews scatter about 137 pounds of salt per person annually to melt ice” (Joseph Stromberg, 2014). So, this is too much of salt that would be going unto our environment harming ourselves, plants, and even animals. Salt can also take off the paint from cars, and causes rust on your undercarriage over time, which brakes most of the cars down because salt tends to scratch metal. Not only does it affect metal, but also it may be necessary to require expensive repairs. Society’s reliance on rock salt has also raised up prices as well.
There are many positive and negative outcomes for using rock salt, therefore that’s why it is important to use an adequate amount of salt to remove ice on your streets or on expressways. So, by doing that we won’t be harming our environment by overpowering salt, and in order to live in a safe place for ourselves too.
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