At this time of the year many small businesses rely  on grit to make sure that their car parks or public entrances are clear of ice and snow.  I was reminded of this fact this morning when I woke up, looked out of the window and saw over an inch of snow outside.

The problem with grit (or rock salt) is that it is not always that easy to store – it’s fine while it is still in the bag (assuming that you are like many small businesses and buy the salt by the bag), however once the bag is opened you run the risk of rain getting into the bag and effectively melting the contents. 

The answer to this is something that you have probably driven past many times in the past at the side of the road and is simply a grit bin.  At the side of the road these are normally yellow in colour and are a plastic bin with a lid on to keep the contents dry.  Having said that the bins do not have to be yellow and the author has seen yellow, green, blue, red and beige bins for sale on the internet, although I would probably go for the yellow one personally as this seems to be the standard colour.  The important thing to look for when buying grit bins is to check that they are weatherproof and corrosion resistant , often this is accomplished by making them from polyethylene (a form of dense plastic).

Other things to consider is the size of the bin, they can hold as little as 30 litres of grit (about the size of a 25kg bag of rock salt) and as much as 400 litres (that’s 14 cubic feet holding 500 kg of salt or grit).  If all you are doing is gritting a pathway and you but the grit a bag at a time then a small bin is probably all you need but if you have a yard used by lorries / forklifts etc or you have a large  carpark you probably would want to buy one of the larger sizes any buy your salt or grit in bulk bags.  You may also want to think about buying a scoop or shovel to get the grit out of the container – remember that you do not need a lot of grit to melt snow, if you think about the council grit spreaders they spray a small quantity of grit on the road and this works, there is no need to cover the complete surface.

There are many sources of grit bins if you look on the internet, one of the larger ones is Setons, they sell a wide range of de-icers, salt, spreaders, grit bins and snow shovels and offer same day despatch and a 30 day no quibble satisfaction guarantee that allows you to return unused items for a replacement, refund or credit on your account.