There is nothing worse than having your kids play on a playground that has sand as a ground covering. It’s messy, toddlers eat it, and it’s very unsanitary, as many animals tend to use it as their outdoor toilet. On the other hand, recycled tires make a great ground covering. It is less messy, safer, much more sanitary option that is easy to make and maintain.
Clean: Sand sticks to everything—legs, feet, hands, clothes, and more. It finds its way into tiny openings of pockets and squeezes between layers of clothing. All that sand in unwanted places leads to a messy clean-up at the end of park day, especially if it has recently rained. In contrast, recycled tire mulch is virtually mess-free. Made of thick pieces of rubber that were once tires, there is nothing that breaks off or gets on your clothes. The pieces are big enough that you can easily brush them off and there is no dye from the rubber to rub off onto your clothes.
Safe: Have you ever dropped from the monkey bars and gotten that painful tingly feeling in your legs after hitting the sand? That happens because sand, although soft to the touch, isn’t a very soft surface to land on. What’s more, if you drop and then fall to the ground, you can easily get a type of road rash from your skin scraping across the sand. Recycled tire mulch is soft and provides a nice cushioned surface on which to fall. In fact, the EPA has recommended it as the preferred option over both sand and wood mulch as there have been fewer instances of broken bones on rubber mulch.
Sanitary: One of the biggest concerns with sand as a playground covering is that it attracts animals to do their business. Stray cats are especially prone to use it because the sand looks like litter. The feces of an animal are full of bacteria and can cause illness to those exposed. Toddlers who are prone to putting sand in their mouth are then exposed to the fecal matter and get sick from its content. Wood mulch is more likely to rot or grow plant fungi. Rubber mulch, because it is not an organic substance, doesn’t break down like wood and animals aren’t attracted to it, making it a much more sanitary option.
How is it made?
One of the best parts about rubber mulch is the process by which it is made. The entire process consists of tires having their steel bands removed and being passed through a machine that grinds the tire up into little tiny pieces. There is no chemical process involved, no ingredients added, and no size or age requirements for the tires to qualify to be ground down. For this reason, virtually every tire can be used to make the mulch. Rubber mulch is becoming more in-demand for both playground and other applications worldwide. At Eco Green Equipment, our turnkey recycling systems specialize in creating material that, like rubber mulch, gives tires a whole new purpose.