Green Options

The Obamas recently installed a new playground on the White House lawn. But one environmental group says the mulch they used will be harmful for their children.

The most technologically advanced, eco-friendly, solar powered playground, the first of its kind in North America, is being dedicated in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward today.

The Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans suffered catastrophic flooding after Hurricane Katrina pummeled New Orleans on August 29, 2005, and many of the residents lost their homes.

They also lost something else.

Playgrounds.

Kids growing up in the mountains where I live love to tie young trees’ trunks into knots. As you drive along the roads, you often see older trees with trunks twisted long ago by young hands.  Plantware has taken this concept even further in designing a living playground for children by manipulating roots and trunks.

Plantware has made benches, love seats, street lights, gates, etc. from living trees.  “Kinder Forest: A Living Playground” takes the idea even further:

KinderForest gives children real trees to play with, gives parents a natural alternative for their children and gives earth urban reforestation that is functional, enjoyable and green. Creating structures from living trees means that ~95% of the playground’s mass is taken from the air using local sunlight and rain. No gasoline-burning chainsaws, trucks, ships or waste. Such structures can live for 700 years and are self repairing, earthquake safe, oxygen producing and provide a habitat for wildlife coinciding with their purpose for humans.

Finally, the warmer season is here, and thoughts turn to outside play for the whole family. For many of us this includes watching our kids of playing on a play set, swinging happily in the June sun, or scooping up sand in a sand box.

But there are a few potential environmental health problems with this scene. The play set, if bought before 2004, could be treated with chromated copper arsenate (CCA), which according to the Green Guide, “the basis of which is arsenic, a carcinogenic chemical that can leach out of CCA-treated wood onto children’s hands and into soil and groundwater. Although CCA has been banned in residential uses since 2004, millions of CCA-treated play sets still exist.”

Do you take your kids to the park? Sign them up for soccer or softball? Parents who care about their children’s health likely encourage outdoor play and participation in organized sports. In the spring, as we begin to shop for soccer cleats and baseball mitts; it is wise to investigate how your schools and municipalities manage their green spaces.

Pesticide exposure is a serious health risk to children. And while limiting, or better yet, eliminating ingested pesticides is important, consider the direct exposure your children may get while they play upon that green, green grass.