Crumb Rubber in Playgrounds and Children's Health

Crumb Rubber in Playgrounds and Children’s Health

March 20, 2018

Interviewees: Robert Wright, M.D. and Homero Harari, Sc.D.

Recycled rubber products were introduced into athletic fields and playgrounds in the 1990s to make playing surfaces more comfortable. This recycled rubber comes from automobile tires ground into small pellets called crumb.

Tires are known to contain heavy metals and cancer-causing chemicals, yet there has been limited safety testing of crumb rubber products. Children may be exposed to harmful substances when crumb rubber touches their skin, by accidentally swallowing small pieces, or by inhaling gases from the rubber.

In this podcast, learn more about studies to understand the health risks of crumb rubber in playgrounds, and ways to reduce children’s exposure to potentially harmful contaminants.

Interviewees

Robert Wright, M.D., is a pediatrician and environmental epidemiologist at the Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He serves as the chair of the Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health as well as the director of the Institute of Exposomic Research, and the Children’s Environmental Health Center.

Wright wrote a Perspective on Recycled Rubber Playing Surfaces, where he and co-author Sara Evans, Ph.D., discussed the significant gaps in knowledge about the safety of crumb rubber playing surfaces. Several potential dangers discussed (and outlined in the Consumer Guide developed by Wright and colleagues), include impacts from extreme heat, inhalation and ingestion of chemicals in rubber, small rubber pieces that can be tracked into homes, and chemicals leaching into groundwater. Wright is a co-investigator on a project working with Homero Harari, Sc.D., Evans, and Maida Galvez, M.D. to characterize exposure to crumb rubber used in artificial turf fields.

Wright has published over 200 research studies, mainly focusing on environmental factors, such as exposures to chemical mixtures, that influence children’s health and neurodevelopment.

Homero Harari, Sc.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, and member of the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai. Harari’s research focuses on understanding the chemical exposure effects of turf and crumb rubber on child health and development.

Harari is the lead investigator on the research study with Wright that is working to characterize exposure to crumb rubber used in artificial turf fields. This project involves community input to help identify research questions that are of particular interest.

Additional Resources

• Check out the latest National Toxicology Program research on Synthetic Turf/Recycled Tire Crumb Rubber
• Read more about Federal Research on recycled tire crumb rubber used on athletic playing fields
• See the Factsheet on artificial turf and children’s health developed by Mount Sinai
• Read more on the New York Health Departments Factsheet on crumb rubber
• Check out a video about crumb rubber and children’s health from Mount Sinai
• Check out the Consumer Guide on crumb rubber and artificial turf for more information and recommendations from the Mouth Sinai Children’s Environmental Health center
• Check out the Crumb Rubber Information Center from the Consumer Product Safety Commission
• Read the Perspective on Recycled Rubber Playing Surfaces written by Wright and Evans