Mulch Surfacing Things To Know Before You Buy

Rubber Mulch

The public playground in Bandon, a small town on the blustery coast of Oregon, has everything a kid could want. Swings and an orange, twisting slide, even a bright blue boat.But after the playground was installed in 2009, some mothers became concerned about the springy black stuff beneath their children’s feet.

“My kids would just be tainted in black,” she said. “Their clothes would be black. And I just knew, this isn’t healthy."Farmer and a handful of other parents started to research rubber infill, the recycled crumbs and shreds of old tire that in various forms have become an increasingly popular option for cities, schools, and day cares looking for a safe play surface for kids.

“I feel that if we know about these potential risks to our children, it’s our responsibility as parents to limit the risk.”Rubber mulch from the playground in Bandon City Park in Bandon, Oregon.NBC NewsThe U.S. government, however, is sending parents like those in Bandon mixed messages about rubber mulch.The rubber mulch in Bandon is made of the same recycled tire rubber that is used as infill in crumb rubber artificial turf.

Playground Rubber Can Be Fun For Anyone

parks, soccer fields and stadiums. More than two dozen studies have attempted to measure the potential health risks of crumb rubber surfaces. While many have found no negative health effects, some doctors and toxicologists believe these studies are limited and insufficient to establish conclusively that shredded rubber surfaces are safe.The difference between rubber mulch and crumb rubber artificial turf is that the federal government actively promotes the use of mulch -– despite conflicting signals from the agencies charged with protecting children’s health and ensuring consumer product safety.

Both the EPA and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, however, recommend and promote rubber mulch. The EPA has worked with industry representatives and state officials to increase the use of tire mulch in playgrounds, and the CPSC recommends mulch in the “Bible” it provides to playground planners across the country.Proponents of rubber mulch say it protects kids from injuries, and that studies have proved crumb rubber to be safe.

Philip Landrigan, dean of global health at New York’s Mt. Sinai Hospital and a top expert on the effect of chemicals on children. “And gifted athletes are on the soccer field almost every day (rubber play bark). That sort of cumulative exposure results in a buildup in their body of these toxic chemicals, and can result in a buildup of cellular damage that's caused by these chemicals, that can then result in disease years or decades later.”“Little children should not be put in a situation where they’re forced to be in intimate contact with carcinogenic chemicals,” Dr.

Rubber Bark Fundamentals Explained

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, emergency rooms treat over 200,000 kids, aged 14 and under, for playground-related injuries every year.Wood chips and pea gravel infill became typical sights at playgrounds. But over the years, recycled tire rubber -- both shredded and ground into round pieces -- has become popular.

“In other words,” he said, “It was the safest thing for a kid to fall onto.”Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.Consumers, like town officials in Bandon, like rubber infill for various reasons (playground rubber mulch). In addition to its bounce, tire is cheaper to maintain in the long run, some say, because it doesn’t degrade like wood chips or other organic materials.Some states, in an effort to recycle and repurpose old tires, incentivize the material.

Rubber Mulch

Federal and independent safety manuals, Hampton added, all point to rubber mulch as a safe surface for playgrounds.“All of them say the same thing,” said Hampton. “This is an appropriate material to be used in a playground.”The playground at Bandon City Park in Bandon, Oregon. NBC NewsParents interviewed in Bandon, Oregon, and others from around the country who wrote to NBC News gave similar testimonies about their young children putting tire in their mouths, and ending up covered in black after playing on playgrounds filled with tire crumb.Alisa O'Brien, a grandmother and a registered nurse from Ft.

Indicators on Playground Rubber Mulch You Need To Know

“I would pick up my grandson from daycare each afternoon to find his hands and arms up to his elbows covered in black,” she said. play area bark.According to the EPA, benzene, mercury, styrene-butadiene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and arsenic, among several other chemicals, heavy metals and carcinogens, have been found in tires. Studies have found that crumb rubber can emit gases that can be inhaled.

“It was difficult,” she said. “There was never one study that’s done that says, ‘This is absolutely safe, or this is toxic.’ Basically it says, ‘There needs to be future studies, but at this particular time, it meets all of the standards necessary for it to be considered safe.’”Dr. Landrigan, whose research in the 1970s on children exposed to lead by a smelting company, is credited with spurring the widespread regulation of the heavy metal, said that currently available studies on rubber infill are “inadequate.”There is not one study, he said, that attempts to measure the effects that long-term, repeated exposure to tire shreds or ground rubber could have on young children.While the International Agency for Research on Cancer says that, at low levels of exposure, carcinogenic chemicals are safe, Landrigan said the repeated exposure of children to such carcinogens and chemicals put them at greater risk than adults, even at low levels.“My concern as a pediatrician when somebody says that the levels are low is to ask the counter-question, 'What's low for a child?' ” Landrigan said.

Rubber Play Bark

Play Area Bark

They breathe, eat and drink more relative to their body weight than adults. They also have many more years of life in which to develop disease triggered by early exposure to a carcinogen.“Children’s cells and organs are rapidly growing and developing,” Landrigan said. “Developmental processes are very complex (playground rubber mulch). They’re easily disrupted.”Several substances found in tires are concerning, Landrigan added.