Watch Out For Those Playgrounds This Summer!

My kids are all out of school after today for summer break. Many of you are in the same boat.

I give it two weeks before the summer boredom festival begins, but that’s another story.

An article caught my attention today about the possible dangers in playgrounds that use ground up tires for flooring. You know, those squishy and bouncy grounds that most new playgrounds have? Kids like bouncing on it and it is supposed to give mom and dad a little more peace of mind in case Junior takes a header off the slide.

Well, now we are being told that there may be hidden health risks in the material being used to protect our children! The Environmental Protection Agency has been in favor of this material for years. Now their OWN scientists are raising doubts about the safety of it.

You see, in the quest to cushion our children’s bones, they fear that there could be harmful carcinogens in the tires used to make the new flooring.

But don’t live your summer days in fear. They don’t have any conclusions just yet. The playground is still a safer bet I am sure than letting your children eat garbage all day and sit around the television getting stupid and fat.

How did any of us make it out of childhood alive back in the days when we had steel merry-go-rounds and the ground was hard? It seems that maybe kids then were made of steel and hard.

At least, harder than they are today. And it’s not their fault.

It’s the adults around them who want to make everything around them made of crushed recyled tires.

Too bad the real world isn’t made of such stuff.