Neither Rock Salt Nor Harsh Chemicals: A Greener Way To Prevent Driveway Ice Buildup

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It might be time to rethink how you deice your drive, especially when you're trying to live more eco-friendly. While classic rock salt is helpful for melting ice and clearing your driveway and sidewalks, the sodium chloride ends up getting into natural waterways and polluting the environment. Surprisingly, beet juice is becoming a popular alternative solution that could help you when your icy driveway is too cold for regular salt. When temperatures drop below 25 degrees Fahrenheit, salt struggles to keep up, but when combined with beet juice, the deicer can be effective in preventing ice buildup in temperatures as low as 5 degrees, according to the Missouri Department of Transportation. Though beet juice isn't as effective at clearing icy driveways on its own, it allows you to use less salt than normal for a better effect. This equates to less salt reaching natural bodies of water or harming nearby plants.

Some areas throughout the United States and Canada have started using mixtures of 80% salt brine and 20% beet juice, a byproduct of sugar making, to treat slick roadways. Tim Byrne, a manager with Lincoln Transportation and Utilities in Nebraska, explained to the Weather Channel how the stickiness of sugary beet juice helps ice melt cling to roadways (thus requiring about 20% less salt) and how it also lessens damage. "The incorporation of that organic by-product serves as a natural corrosion inhibitor," he said. "By incorporating that into our solutions, (it) makes a brine that is 75% less corrosive than salt itself." To make your winter maintenance practices a bit greener and protect your driveway and car from salt damage, try opting for a beet juice deicer.

To spread less salt and chemicals on your driveway during the winter, beet juice is a great solution for preventing ice. You can buy beet juice deicing products, like Snow Joe Beet-It Ice Melter at Home Depot, or try mixing your own to melt driveway snow and ice with ease. For a DIY ice melt, dissolve 1 ½ cups of salt into a gallon of water to make a brine, and combine that with a cup of beet juice. Use your solution to pretreat your driveway and sidewalks before temperatures get extremely low, so it will prevent ice from accumulating. While some worry that the beet juice deicer causes red or brown stains, the color won't be permanent and will wash away with water.

Since beet juice lowers the freezing point, this method could be one of the fastest ways to deice your driveway during freezing winters, as you can stop the ice from forming in the first place. Though beet juice helps you save on salt and is more eco-friendly, these somewhat natural deicers may still let a bit of sodium into the environment, according to a 2018 study from the American Physiological Society. Because of this, it's important to remain mindful when spreading a commercial or homemade beet juice ice melt on your driveway and always follow the instructions for safe use.