Finland recycles sand to keep winter roads clean

Winter road maintenance is no easy thing. Every northern country can prove it. For example, Finland is covered with snow, on average, from November to March, and in Lapland the snow stays until June. However, this country knows how to cope with frost and snow, and even blizzards do not often cause serious trouble.

Grit – a mixture of sand and rock salt – helps a lot to keep roads clean. Gritters – also known as sanders or salt trucks – are used to spread grit onto roads. Salt makes ice melt at lower temperature and run off to the edge of the road, and sand helps to increase friction between car tires and the road surface. Though the salt eventually gets washed away, the insoluble sand is collected, recycled and kept for the next winter.

Annual cost of winter road maintenance is about €100 mln, which is definitely a lot. But everybody who drives in Finland in wintertime is grateful to the guys who managed to keep the roads that perfect.

Ocean pack

Ocean pack is a great thing for any trips in, by or around water. Boat trips, rafting, sightseeing in the rain, whatever you can think of. It is made of some clever waterproof material. Several sizes are available, but even a 10-liter option is enough to fit the whole world in it.

The seal is formed by rolling the top over on itself four times and then clipping the top into a circle, one side to the other. You know, there is nothing else! Nothing! This piece of rubber will perfectly protect your precious electronic devices and other stuff.

Stealing? No. Not from this backpack.

Designers are doing miracles these days. It was very nice of them to create a netbook backpack from which no one can get anything when it sits on your back. This particular model has a zipper on the backside, and it can be opened only when the owner takes it off his shoulders. Great for metro, buses, suburban trains, well, for any crazy city.

Update: After an extensive discussion with our readers we decided to add that while this backpack cannot protect your purse properly, it is still very good for keeping your laptop safe.

Holding hot stuff

We’ve seen that chemists use a really cool device to take hold of hot stuff. They take two small pieces of a rubber hose, cut them from one side, put them on the fingers and can hold any hot test tubes, flasks and glasses without getting burnt. This device protects the fingers and provides a firm grip at the same time. Katya’s mom even has this thing at home.

Be small. Sit low.

In cities traffic lights are always well above cars, and that is why they are so difficult to see. Drivers have to stretch their necks real hard in order not to miss the right signal. To prevent accidents small traffic lights have been installed across the whole of Europe… at eye-level to drivers. Sometimes getting smaller means getting better.

Mirror, mirror in the hall

Imagine yourself as a retired person visiting cathedral. Your neck is not as flexible as it used to be. In this case you would probably say thank God for the mirrors placed on the floor so that you could admire the reflection of marvelous arches without throwing back your head. It’s so thoughtful and so easy to do.

Save the bread

What happens if you love bread? One day you buy too much, and it gets stale. Inevitably. And then you have to do something about it. In Portugal people have a number of recipes for yesterday’s bread. Their Acorda de Marisco is the best one. It is a kind of shellfish bread stew, both tasty and good for satisfying a coal miner’s appetite. And what do you do with stale bread?