Landfill-Bound Garlic Salt is De-Icing Roads in Iowa
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada 
on 12.22.08
Mmmm, Delicious Garlic Slush!
Parents will have more trouble keeping their small children from eating snow in the Des Moines suburb of Ankeny. The city is using garlic salt to de-ice its road, thanks to a generous donation by Tone Brothers Inc., a spice producer headquartered in Ankeny. Read on for more details.
From the Chicago Tribune:
Public Works Administrator Al Olson says the company donated 18,000 pounds of garlic salt to use on its 400 miles of roads.Olson doesn't have details, but he says the salt would have ended up in the landfill, so the company donated it. A telephone call Wednesday to Tone Brothers wasn't immediately returned.
Olson says the city mixed the garlic salt with regular road salt and it works fine.
Some of the road workers apparently reported that it makes them hungry, but aside from that, there are no apparent downsides to this original recycling project. This makes me wonder how many things that are sent to the landfill by big food producers could find other uses (composting?)...
Via Consumerist
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Ah man, I'm hungry just reading about it!
Brilliant crossover thinking! This will simultaneously solve both the icing and roadside vampire problem!
Brilliant crossover thinking! This will simultaneously solve both the icing and roadside vampire problem!
LOL @ Jason.
Good thing I wasn't drinking anything, because that would've been a movie cliche.
From what I have read, up to 30 percent of all materials that get tossed into the landfill could be recycled or composted. That includes food waste, building materials, yard waste and other material that should not be landfilled..
Another important question is how they managed to over-produce 18,000 lbs of garlic salt. It's better to use it on the roads than to throw it in the landfill, but it would be even better for the environment if the energy to make the excess garlic salt was never used in the first place.
"Another important question is how they managed to over-produce 18,000 lbs of garlic salt."
That's a good question. My first guess was that it was contaminated and couldn't be sold, because businesses don't like to produce stuff they can't sell. But maybe they ARE that inefficient.
that is really awesome.
very creative!
Kudos for the company for thinking outside the box, and Kudos to the city for being flexible and creative!
Guess they never did find that severed hand.
Plus the roadkill will be pre-seasoned!
I guess [salt] is the reason why absolutely everything is dead in the creeks around the house I grew up in. sucks
I am just wondering if this is good for the waterways the garlic salt goes into, after everything melts.
I know the salt is detrimental to the storm water systems and local waterways.
Normally in Iowa we use Calcium Chloride, but when push comes to shove we'll use anything we can to get roadways passable.
Last winter some towns resorted to fly ash when supplies of sand and CaCl2 were low. If you're not careful you'll need professional carpet cleaning to get that out of your house.
Americas salt mines has inexhaustable amounts of salt, more than they can even guesstimate. Yet every state is in distress because there is not enough salt to go around!? Sounds like BS....
"Americas salt mines has inexhaustable amounts of salt, more than they can even guesstimate. Yet every state is in distress because there is not enough salt to go around!? Sounds like BS...."
I think you missed the point, dude.
It's not about lack of salt, it's about find a use for something that would've gone to the landfill.