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Bill Seeks To Ban Rubber Crumb Playground Turf

Ground-up recycled tire crumbs cover this playground.
Mike Derer
/
AP
Ground-up recycled tire crumbs cover this playground.

The Connecticut legislature is considering a bill that would ban the use of recycled tires in playgrounds.  

State Representative Diana Urban, D-North Stonington, supports the bill. She says the repurposed tires are a health hazard.   

“Young children, they sit, they crawl, they dig, they roll, they eat, they drink on playgrounds. Now that we have these recycled shredded rubber playgrounds, we are exposing those children to toxins.”  

Urban was speaking at a public hearing on the bill in Hartford on Friday.  

She says chemicals used in recycled rubber tires contain 12 known carcinogens and 20 lung irritants.   

A few years ago, the state legislature failed to pass a similar bill that would have banned high schools from using such materials on their playing fields. 

This report contains information from CRN.

Copyright 2017 WSHU

A native of New York City, Ann Lopez, has spent more than 20-years working in journalism. Her career has brought her to Ms. Magazine and Newsday. She also worked at WGBH in Boston as a producer and director for The World, an international radio news magazine show. Ann was the founding producer for WSHU's mid-day talk show, The Full Story. As a Senior Producer, Ann works with the hosts of Morning Edition and All Things Considered to produce interviews that focus on local topics and issues that our listners care about.

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