Soil amendment alternatives to driveway salt

Has anyone tried using soil amendments as a traction aid/ice melter?

I’ve seen municipalities use beet sugar syrup on roads and I’ve noticed anything in the snow will aid melting on sunny days.

My driveway drains to a garden bed and I’d rather improve the soil than build up ice melter salts or extra sand.

Some options I am interested in trying: biochar, azomite rock dust, beet pulp, ground pine bark, dry molasses, sawdust.

I’d be interested in hearing others experience!

We used to put sand on the ice.

I've heard of various municipalities using whey. I don't have any personal experience with it. We don't get much snow and when we do, it doesn't stick.  But if you have dairy animals, I would say it's worth a try.

It depends on your conditions, but sure, you could use all sorts of soil amendments as traction and melting aids.

Char, ashes, compost, wood chips, sawdust, black garden dirt. All will work if you have some sunlight or near melting conditions on your driveway.

It's more challenging if you have sheets of hard-frozen clear ice, especially if it's very cold. Not everything will give traction in that case. Sand and gravel are abrasive, giving grip even in small amounts. In the long-ago time, the ash from coal was particularly helpful -- it's the stuff that grindstones are made of.

The other trick is that you have to have a large supply that is dry and free-flowing at freezing temperatures. A giant frozen block of traction aids that can only be broken up with a jackhammer or dynamite is not particularly helpful.

Edit: Natural materials tend to stick to boots and track into the house. This leads to a different sort of friction. You may gain traction in one area and lose it in another.

Back when my parents kept chickens they would scatter wood ashes around the entrance to the chicken house in late winter and early spring, to speed the thaw so the chickens would go outside earlier in the year. Usually, they would refuse to go further than a couple steps from the door as long as there was snow... Suppose it would work for driveways too. Ashes are probably quite a good choice, since they presumably both lower the melting temperature of the ice (due to the soluble potassium carbonate, same effect as road salt), decrease the albedo of the ice to absorb more of the sun's heat, and provide friction, at least as long as the ash is on the surface (insoluble calcium carbonate).

I've used crushed eggshells to give traction on the ice that formed near my chicken coop. That seemed to work well, and didn't stick as tightly to my shoes as some materials did.