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Risk Alerts

Playground Showdown: Sand vs. Woodchips 

A study published December 2009 by the Public Library of Science and funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research reports that children are less likely to suffer broken arms due to falls onto sand rather than engineer wood chips. According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), either surfacing is acceptable depending on appropriate depths for public playground shock absorbing material. Those recommended depths can be found in the Public Playground Safety Handbook (630k ) which was updated in 2008 to reflect new trends in play equipment and varying depths and materials used for shock absorbing surfaces. Due to funding limitations, the CPSC no longer prints and mails the Handbook but your district can download a copy by clicking on the link above.