Parents in the Kingston City School District are urging school officials to ensure elementary school playgrounds are safe for children, specifically citing the potential dangers in rubber flooring meant to keep kids safe.
The possibility of cancer-causing chemicals and lead in the recycled tires used in the crumb rubber surfaces on playgrounds across the district brought several parents to the school board meeting held on Wednesday, September 20, with Lee Kelly saying she first became aware of the potential danger of lead poisoning when her family fell ill during a home renovation.
“I’m here to propose that all of Kingston’s public school playgrounds be tested for lead and other heavy metals,” Kelly said, asking that school officials immediately halt ongoing work on playground renovations by Playsafe Surfacing, LLC, the Plant City, Florida company engaged by the district to lay EPDM (ethylene propylene diene monomer) rubber on new playgrounds at Harry L. Edson, Robert R. Graves and George Washington elementary schools. Work is still being done at Edward R. Crosby and Chambers elementary schools, while John F. Kennedy Elementary School’s playground was renovated nearly a decade ago and was not part of the current ongoing project.
“It’s a unique combination of EPDM rubber granules and a cushion layer of shredded recycled rubber tires utilizing a European polymer that is poured in place on site providing a seamless surface for endless applications,” reads the description on the Playsafe website. “Primarily providing critical fall height protection for children on playgrounds.”
EPDM and shredded recycled tires — commonly referred to as “crumb rubber” — surfaces offer a safer landing than traditional playground materials, the combination can sometimes be toxic.
“Playsafe is using an incredibly toxic product called crumb rubber,” said Kelly. “This is made from recycled tires and it contains carcinogens and lead.”
Crumb rubber surfaces on athletic fields have been banned in places like Washington, DC; Westport, Connecticut; and Montgomery County, Maryland.
According to a December 2018 report by the Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI) at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, the use of recycled tires can be harmful in their playground application.
“Tires are primarily composed of styrene butadiene rubber (SBR),” read the TURI report. “They also contain a wide variety of intentionally added chemicals, such as stabilizers, fillers and vulcanization (curing) agents. Additional substances can adhere to tires during use.”
Among those additional substances that TURI said are known to be hazardous to human health are polyaromatic hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds (VOC) and heavy metals like lead.
Additionally, the TURI report found that while EPDM and TPE (thermoplastic elastomer) surfaces are often marketed as alternatives to recycled tires and “may potentially pose a lower level of concern,” they too can include polymers and additives.
“For this reason, it is difficult or impossible to make broad statements about the safety of a given product unless one has access to more detailed information,” found the TURI study. “In general, EPDM rubber can contain PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), VOCs and a range of additives including carbon black, oils and minerals.”
Parent Matthew Greenwald said his family was excited about soft surfaces being installed at local school playgrounds until they learned about the possible dangers.
“That excitement has been replaced with a lot of anxiety because of the potential health impacts both to children and the environment,” Greenwald said. “I think given the growing consensus that is building against this material crumb rubber, I just ask what does the board of education intend to do to address this? Given the lifespan of this type of material, I think it’s important for current and future generations of children, as well as the environment that the material be removed. I understand the pain that this probably causes because it was installed so recently, but I think the right choice is clear and I think we should halt any future installations or any in progress installations as well. And then again, to be clear, we should also remove any existing installations.”
Kelly agreed, imploring district officials to consider alternative playground surfaces.
“I’m asking you that since safe surfaces do exist, let’s choose to protect versus knowingly compromising our most vulnerable, our children, by replacing all of its toxic playground and athletic field surfaces with verifiably safe non-toxic alternatives,” she said.
District officials said they’d asked Playsafe Surfacing, LLC to confirm that their surfaces aren’t harmful, and in the meantime have asked Ulster BOCES to test samples taken from the recently opened playground at George Washington Elementary. The results from those tests have yet to be shared by district officials.
The next meeting of the Board of Education is scheduled for Wednesday, October 11.
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