Rock Salt is the common term for Halite, a mineral that crops up after enclosed lakes and seas evaporate - these vast salt beds can literally be hundreds of metres deep. Here in good ol' Blighty we have three huge salt mines, the biggest being in Winsford which produces about a million tonnes of grit salt each year (except for that one time that they ran out completely and Dandy's managed to create an alternative product to keep the whole of the UK going - more on that later).
Halite, or rock salt, is commercially used as an ice melter because brine (that's salty water to most of us), has a lower freezing point than pure water which means that it melts ice - this is known as freezing point depression.
You don't need to throw tonnes of salt on every patch of ice - a light sprinkling should loosen it up enough to start to melt naturally; you can also add sand or grit to your salt to improve traction and help it spread a bit further, and a bit easier.
Head over to Wikipedia for more salty facts for your school project - now we're going to talk about how Dandy's saved the day back in 2010 when the UK's salt mines literally ran out of salt ;)
We don't cope all that well with freezing temps in Great Britain. As it got colder and colder back in 2010, more and more rock salt was processed, purchased and used; unfortunately, our little group of isles got through the rock salt supplies long before the sun decided to do it's thing.
So - step up Dandy's - not only did we ship in a boat load of salt - which was promptly eaten into straight away - we also worked round the clock to come up with a blend of something else that would effectively melt snow and ice and provide traction.
We took a powdered salt that typically wouldn't be much good at preventing slipping on roads and paths but would melt it, and blended it with a very small 1 - 6mm stone which provided the much needed texture for traction - and so Ultragrip was born - if you want the original and best then make sure you always choose Dandy's for your Rock Salt needs!
Our Ultragrip was shipped out to Councils, hospitals, fire services, schools, businesses and homes all over the UK and our staff worked tirelessly all over the Christmas period to make sure we could get this much needed salt shipped out to everyone who needed it to keep themselves, their families, customers, clients, suppliers, friends and more on their feet and on the road during some of the worst British weather most people had ever seen in their lives!