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New Snow-melting Agent to Replace Salt
Beijing municipal government adopted 150 tons of snow-melting agent to replace salt Sunday, which protected trees from salty water in snowy days.
The new agent will gradually replace salt, which was traditionally employed to melt snow, since salt will do harm to plants and corrode buildings, China Daily reported Tuesday, quoting Lu Jianguo from the Beijing Second Cleansing Vehicles Field.
The new environmentally friendly agent was solely developed by the Beijing Environmental Sanitation Institute and made in east China's Shandong Province, since there are no chemical materials in Beijing to produce the agent, Director of the Institute Wu Wenwei said.
Recent use has shown that the agent can melt snow in a shorter period than salt does and can dissolve faster in water. Experiments showed the agent did not kill plants and its corrosive effect on buildings was relatively slight in comparison with salt.
Wu also said that two types of the agent have been put into use at a cost of 1,500 yuan (about US$181 per ton and 4,000 yuan (about US$484 per ton, which are much higher than the cost of salt at 400 yuan (about US$48 per ton).
He said that the municipal government is expected to stop using salt to melt snow soon.
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