Safety & Environment

Safety & Environment: to be taken seriously. Safety and the environment are as important for you as they are for us. We make it a point of honour to keep you well informed.

Since calcium chloride is classed as an 'irritant', it is necessary to observe certain elementary precautions. These include :

• never place the skin in prolonged contact with CASO or any of its solutions

• use water, preferably lukewarm, to thoroughly rinse any part of the body affected by this product.

• wear gloves made from rubber or plastic.

• avoid any inhalation of CASO dust.

• wear protective glasses when handling CASO.

• avoid working with equipment made from leather.

With regard to the effects of CASO on the environment, we offer you the following thoughts :

• Calcium and chlorine ions are everywhere in the atmosphere and are used physiologically for living organisms. They occur naturally in the soil, rocks and sediment, as well as in surface or deep water.
• Calcium is an essential element in the cycle of life. It plays a part in the mineral balance of plants and is an important element in the composition of the water in our rivers and in our mains supplies. The effects on the environment of calcium in the form of calcium chloride are not to be feared.
• Chlorine ions, the other component of CASO, should be looked at from two points of view.

On the whole, the chlorine found in river water rarely exceeds the levels allowed by official bodies responsible for public health and the environment. Certain periods of the winter have revealed very short peaks in concentration. Recent studies have shown that these occurrences do not have an important influence on the aquatic environment.

As far as fluoride is concerned, even in those areas where CASO is used intensively do we find anything like the destruction of plants put forward by certain alarmists. The occasional accelerated fall of leaves or plant thorns (biological regulators of the latter) have been observed, as has the appearance of plants which are particularly resistant to chlorine or the mutation of certain species of plant.

In 45 years of spreading CASO on our roads, no serious incident concerning an animal ingesting this product has been brought to our attention.