Winter colorants: A bright solution to make winter roadways safer

Milliken’s Liquitint™ Winter colorants help service crews to save time, money & material. No one likes driving on snow-covered, slush-filled, icy winter roads. But if you must, you at least can take a degree of comfort in knowing that the salt truck has been there before you, and applied salt or brine to the roadway to help make it safer for all. But how can you know that? Until now, when using the typically colorless salts and mixtures for winter roads, it’s been difficult to tell.

Benefits of colored salt and brine

Those communities choosing to have their road crews use Milliken’s Liquitint Winter colorants for snow and ice management have a built-in advantage. Offered in an unlimited range of colors, the odor-less, non-staining Liquitint additives for winter de-icing provide a number of benefits.

The crews can see exactly where they’ve applied the salt or brine, and how much. By using various colors to differentiate between the products being applied, they also can tell which products (e.g., brine, calcium chloride, magnesium chloride) have been applied where. These winter colorants for de-icing roads also can provide a visual indication when nozzles clog or when other aspects of the machine malfunction. This information can help service departments to save time, labor expense and material.

Additionally, the engineers and maintenance personnel involved will appreciate that Liquitint Winter colorants have been highly engineered to easily wash off with soap and water from most surfaces, and will not stain or damage equipment, property or clothing.

Using winter colorants to help detect leaks and spills

Those individuals charged with filling the polytanks with the required winter salt and brine solution will find it much easier to determine the fill levels in the tanks when using a colored additive. This contrast effect can help to avoid overfilling and spillage. And these winter colorants also can help aid with safety by helping to detect leaks and spills, by revealing if puddles are water or some other liquid. This can be especially important when dealing with materials that have environmental and health implications.

But perhaps the most important benefit of all of using colored salt and brine mixtures for winter roads may be that it clearly offers visible evidence to drivers and others in your community that local officials are working hard and meeting their commitment to make the streets safer in the most efficient manner possible. And that is difficult to put a price on.