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| writing:road_salt [2026/06/25 02:28] – JacobCoffinWrites | writing:road_salt [2026/07/02 20:52] (current) – JacobCoffinWrites |
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| Even in solarpunk cities, where driving would hopefully be less of a common concern, people would need to accept that they can be safe in the winter without salt crunching underfoot and that's not easy. This is a fairly recent expectation, and it's driven by a mix of things including legal liability (a bag of salt is a lot cheaper than a personal injury lawsuit) and the present day need to hustle, even in bad weather, that demands that people go out during an ice storm and woe betide anyone who hasn't salted their sidewalk enough. Education is a big piece here, informing people on how salt works on ice, that a heap of dry salt isn't changing anything but the local wetlands, and the consequences of overusing road salt. | Even in solarpunk cities, where driving would hopefully be less of a common concern, people would need to accept that they can be safe in the winter without salt crunching underfoot and that's not easy. This is a fairly recent expectation, and it's driven by a mix of things including legal liability (a bag of salt is a lot cheaper than a personal injury lawsuit) and the present day need to hustle, even in bad weather, that demands that people go out during an ice storm and woe betide anyone who hasn't salted their sidewalk enough. Education is a big piece here, informing people on how salt works on ice, that a heap of dry salt isn't changing anything but the local wetlands, and the consequences of overusing road salt. |
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| | ===Possible Phytoremediation Options=== |
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| | [[phytoremediation_bioremediation_mycoremediation|Phytoremediation]] is the practice of using living plants to clean soil, air and water by absorbing, containing, or breaking down hazardous substances. Normally this research is aimed more at heavy metals or Persistent Organic Pollutants, but I've found a few articles on remediating chloride-contaminated soils which may be relevant. The linked page from this wiki will provide more information on the processes used in phytoremediation. |
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| | [[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0269749120310459|This paper]] identifies [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atriplex_patula|Atriplex patula]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atriplex_canescens|Atriplex canescens]] as potential candidates for chloride remediation with decent results. |
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| | [[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11104-025-07873-x|This paper]] identifies [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panicum_virgatum|Panicum virgatum]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporobolus_michauxianus|Sporobolus michauxianus]]. |
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| | This research is very new, and I'm not aware of any real life chloride phytoremediation projects currently underway. It looks like these plants would be used as chloride accumulators, and their contaminated above-ground biomass would be harvested and disposed of for years until chloride levels in the soil diminished. |
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| | It may be worth noting that some of these plants are [[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969716317144|excretor halophytes]] (known as recretohalophytes) which have specialized salt glands that allow accumulated salt to be excreted onto their leaf surfaces and then dispersed via the wind in a process known as haloconduction. This make make them less effective for remediation purposes. |
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