When it's get colder in my country and there is ice on the roads, the sidewalks are strewn by sand, salt and chemical reagents to prevent people from slipping over. The idea is nice, but the realisation is awful. Why? When our sidewalks are strewn with sands, your shoes get dirty very quickly. Moreover, you bring this dirty home, what makes you clear the floor more often and this dirty comes to the roads where cars are going and the more roads are dirty, the more dirtier cars are, what makes you clean them more often, what costs money and so on. When our sidewalks are strewn with salt and chemical reagents, it spoils your shoes that they become out of use quicker. In Finland this problem is solved in another way and I like it so much.
When cold weather comes, you can see granite pebbles on the streets. It prevents your from slipping and is safe both for the environment and your shoes. What a nice approach! But do you know what they do with all the granite pebbles that are left after every winter? During the winter, crushed granite is scattered so much that in the spring, after the melting of the road frost, all roads are literally covered with a layer of granite. Where does it go?
When it becomes clear that there will be no more snowfall, the housing and utilities services begin to clean the yard roads and paths from the layer of granite that has accumulated during the winter. With special equipment, pebbles are thrown from the side of the road to the middle of the tracks. The pebbles are thoroughly cleaned from the places where the tractor cannot reach them. After all of these is done, tractors appear. The task of these tractors are to wet the granite pebbles with water so that another tractor can easily collect residues without spreading dust.
From this tank, water trickles down onto the stones, soaking them evenly. The following tractor finally cleans the road of pebbles, gathering pebbles in the special shovel.
After that, pebbles are transported and poured out into a special body. Next, the pebbles are taken away, washed from other trash and dirt, and wait for next year!
I think it's a cool Finnish feature to adopt! :) I would like our government to start to use this method in my home city. It would be good for the nature and form shoes :)