Crumb rubber fields may be giving kids cancer

Playing fields made from toxic tires linked to cancer

It was supposed to be good for the environment – but it may be killing kids instead.

Communities everywhere are installing new “crumb rubber” athletic fields and playgrounds made from ground-up, recycled tires. Tires that are pulverized to make billions of “black dots” that get into our kids’ and grandkids’ hair, clothing, and even mouths.

But now health experts are warning that this crumb rubber material has never been proven safe and may be exposing children to some of the most toxic chemicals on the planet.

And at least one big-time soccer coach says she’s found dozens of kids who may have developed cancer – and even died – as a result.

Killing fields

The list seems to grow every year.

Amy Griffin, a soccer coach at the University of Washington, has a running tally of 63 young athletes who developed cancer after years competing on crumb rubber turf fields.

And that’s just soccer players.

Soccer players like Austen Everett, who started playing on crumb rubber when she was in sixth grade. She spent hours every day practicing her goal-keeping skills on fields filled with those tiny black rubber dots.

By 2008, Austen had even made the University of Miami soccer team. And that’s when a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cut her dreams – and her life – short.

Griffin has been coaching for three decades and said she can’t remember a single case of cancer during the first half of her career.

But now there a “stream of kids” coming down with the disease.

And it’s not hard to see why.

Grinding up tires to make athletic fields and playgrounds may seem earth-friendly. But the fact is, tires are made with toxic chemicals like mercury, lead, benzene and arsenic that have all been linked to cancer.

And while the industry would like you to believe that these poisons stay trapped inside the rubber – even when it’s pulverized – there haven’t been any safety studies.

And with cases of cancers popping up, lots of communities are running scared.

Montgomery County, Maryland, for example, just banned the installation of any new crumb rubber fields this year, something New York City and Los Angeles have already done. And in California, lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to introduce a bill preventing new crumb rubber fields and playgrounds from being installed until the state presents a study showing them to be safe.

Even the EPA, which proclaimed crumb rubber safe just seven years ago, is now saying that “more testing needs to be done.”

And I guess they’re going to keep using our kids and grandkids as the guinea pigs.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to sit around waiting for the EPA to do its job. We know enough right now to say that toddlers and young children should be kept off of playgrounds and fields made from these toxic tires.

And if your school or town is considering installing a crumb rubber field or playground, it’s time to get involved. You need to inform other parents and officials about the risks and questions, and voice your concern at your next school board or town council meeting.

Especially since there are alternatives such as coconut fibers, cork, or even the very same thing we played on as kids.

And that’s good old-fashioned grass.

To read more about crumb rubber, including ways to take action in your community, click here to check out the website for the Safe, Healthy Playing Fields Coalition.

Sources:

“Feds won’t say if artificial turf on your kid’s soccer field is safe” Hannah Rappleye, Kevin Monahan, Stephanie Gosk, October 1, 2015, NBC News, nbcnews.com