Something New About Tot Lot Hunting

[Cliff KS]

I was at one of our state parks today and saw bag upon bag of shredded rubber inside their maintenance compound. I figured it was some sort of new road pothole patch, but when I asked the regional parks supervisor about it he said that new federal regulations were requiring that wood chips in public playground areas had to be replaced with a rubber mat material. The wood chips must be removed, then a layer of gravel is put down. Then the shredded rubber is mixed with an adhesive and rolled into a layer several inches thick on top of the gravel, Then a thinner layer of pelleted rubber mixed with the adhesive is rolled out on top of that, so that the final product is a soft rubber mat about 5 inches thick for the kids to land on when they fall off of the playground equipment. It is suppose to be porous enough that water will pass through the mat and not sit on top.

He said that schools are exempt from the regulation, but that city, county, state, federal parks will have to make the switch.
So all of you MD'ers that rely on the tot-lot/ wood chip action had better make hay now before the changes occur in your area.

 

[rmptr]

That sounds like quite a process, Cliff.

Here in CA we have some playground areas that have a partial covering of spongy coarse rubber. Others are shredded tires died green, brown, or reddish colored.

But some are still sand, and others are partly sand, and part rubber.

There are a LOT of extremely sensitive people here in CA and I just can not understand why they would stand for used tires going into a playground. No telling what is mixed in with tire compounds, but I'll guarantee it ain't natural!

They must have MD's at the plant, though... Haven't seen any shredded steel belt radials... Ouch!
hh

 

[Pap]

locally they use a rubber liner and wood chips on top. it actually helps when detecting because the wood chips are usually only 4-5 inches deep and that prevents targets from going deeper than the layer of wood chips.
Pap

 

[Mike Hillis]

n/t

 

[khouse]

I have found pieces of valve stems in this stuff. I really don't like to hunt the rubber mulch. I get beeps all over.