Safety Surfacing
A proper playground surface is one of the most important factors in reducing injuries and the severity of those injuries. The surface under the playground equipment should be soft enough and thick enough to soften the impact of a child’s fall.
Today, safety experts recommend “softer” playground surfacing options, which serve to absorb some of the impact by serving to cushion the child’s fall. The proper playground surface can dramatically improve playground safety.
One increasingly commonplace type of playground surface is made of rubber. Rubber not only cushions impact, but it also reduces slips and falls, thereby enhancing playground safety by leaps and bounds.
There are two basic styles of rubberized playground surfacing:
- rubber crumb, also called rubber mulch or loose fill rubber surfacing, which is comprised of small grains of free-floating rubber particles.
- pour-in-place or unitary rubber playground surfacing is rather similar to rubber track material. It’s poured into forms while warm and it fuses into a flexible rubber surface that cushions impacts and reduces the risk of suffering serious injury.
