Forgot Password?
Written by Natalya Stanko   
Share |
Tuesday, 16 August 2011

Green Playgrounds
We'd be walking down the street or through a park, holding our parent’s hand, and then we'd see it—the curve of a swing set, or the red, blues, and yellows of the monkey bars… and we set out running ☺ Playgrounds teach kids invaluable lessons—how to share, move, imagine, and have fun! Today, as children become more sedentary and their opportunities to explore the outdoors are more limited, playgrounds are more important than ever. Kids just want to play and parents just want their kids to stay safe, and that's largely why environmentally friendly playgrounds are quickly gaining popularity. Generally, what's safe for the environment is safe—and fun—for kids too.

The definition of a safe playground is changing. Some playground materials that were considered eco-friendly just years ago are now deemed dangerous. Most wooden playsets built prior to 2003 were specially treated with chromium copper arsenate (CCA), which preserves wood from weathering. Unfortunately, arsenate poses a health hazard to kids. According to a study by the Environmental Working Group, “one in 500 children who regularly come into contact with treated wood would be at risk for developing lung or bladder cancer later in life.”1 CCA is no longer used in the manufacture of new playsets, but it is still present in most playgrounds.

For years, crumb rubber was touted for its spongy texture that helps reduce playground accidents. Made of old tires, crumb rubber is a neat example of creative reuse. Even Sasha and Malia Obama play on crumb rubber on the White House playground!2 But crumb rubber might not be as safe as it seems. It contains about 30 toxic chemicals, including arsenic, cadmium, chromium, mercury, and several dangerous hydrocarbons.3 The Rubber Manufacturers Association says that there are more than 100 studies that vouch for the safety of tire crumb in playgrounds, but Jeff Ruch, head of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, says that only two of the toxins have been studied for possible toxicological effects in children.4

While most playgrounds still use the brightly-colored tire crumb, the good news is that some playset manufacturers are rethinking their materials. Companies like BigToys, Play Mart, and Game Time are manufacturing playsets made of recycled steel, plastics without PVC, and wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.5

In addition to changing playset materials, school officials and environmental planners are reconsidering playground designs. In the last decade, designs have changed, but not necessarily for the better. In an effort to increase safety, seesaws have disappeared, high bars have become lower, and long steel slides have been replaced with short plastic ones. Ironically, some say that these safety improvements have led to more playground accidents. Sharon Danks, an environmental planner, says, “My 4-year-old recently broke her arm on a play structure meant for 2 to 5-year-olds because she found it so boring. She was walking on the outside of the bridge and sliding down the handrail and fell off. These structures are so unchallenging that kids are making up their own activities, which are often 10 times more dangerous.”6

To remedy the problem, environmental planners like Danks are now creating playgrounds with less play structures and ball games and more ecological play areas, which combine diverse ecosystems for hands-on learning experiences. Asphalt is replaced with gardens, ponds, sand, and boulders. Natural playgrounds are springing up nationwide from Washington D.C., to Portland, and to Chicago. San Francisco's playgrounds now boast “a 35-foot-long dry creek bed made of beautiful salvaged granite stones, climbing trees, fencing from recycled redwood chicken coops, native flowers, and a water pump for making mud pies and sand castles (muck boots included).”7

Danks says that ecological playgrounds also decrease bullying. She explains, “In more natural environments, it's less about who's the strongest and the fastest and more about using the imagination. It changes the dynamic of who's in charge. And there's less conflict because the kids aren't as bored.”8 Critics of ecological playgrounds say that they don't provide as much exercise as traditional playsets. Case in point: Carkeek Park in Seattle installed a conventional playset after parents complained that their kids were getting restless in the natural play spaces.9

Indeed, kids do expend a great deal of energy on see-saws, swings, ladders, and merry-go-rounds. So now engineers are thinking that all that kid-generated energy could go to good use! A school in Ghana is now using playground-playing power to light its school. When the children push their merry-go-round (which is partially made of recycled car parts), they make energy that lights their lamps!10 Who knew – producing clean energy is just child's play ☺





Browse all Greeniacs Articles Browse all Greeniacs Guides        Browse all Greeniacs Articles
_______________________________________________________________________________

1 http://www.grist.org/article/lumbered
2 http://www.mnn.com/family/family-activities/blogs/is-your-playground-toxic
3 http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/crumb-rubber-investigation.php
4 http://www.mnn.com/family/family-activities/blogs/is-your-playground-toxic
5 http://www.ehow.com/list_6747142_green-playground-designs-kids.html
6 http://www.grist.org/article/2011-05-20-buildin
7 http://www.millercomp.com/main.php?page=press/audubon_playground/index
8 http://www.grist.org/article/2011-05-20-buildin
9 http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/
2010-04-22-EARTH_GreenPlaygrounds22_ST_N.htm
10 http://news.byu.edu/archive08-jun-ghana.aspx




Add your comment
RSS comments

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Click here to Register.  Click here to login.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 16 August 2011 )

SEARCH GREENIACS.COM

Green Facts

  • Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

  • Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.

  • Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.

  • A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  • Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.

  • Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.

  • Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.

  • For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.

  • Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.

  • The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.

  • A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.

  • Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.

  • Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.

  • Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.

  • It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

  • An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!

  • American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.

  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.

  • 77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.

  • In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.

  • Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.

  • One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.

  • 82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.

  • Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.

  • You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.

  • In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.

  • Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months

  • Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

  • Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.

  • Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

  • You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.

  • States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.

  • Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.

  • Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

  • Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.

  • A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.

  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.

  • You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.

  • If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.