Published: April 17, 2008 10:50 pm      

Where the rubber meets the playground

Area schools benefit from surfacing grants

Ashland — Several area schools are looking forward to safer playgrounds and walking tracks thanks to grants for crumb-rubber surfacing.

Gov. Steve Beshear on Wednesday announced awarding of close to $1 million in grants for the surfacing, which is made of recycled tires. The announcement kicked off Kentucky’s Earth Week celebration.

Area recipients include:

‰Ponderosa Elementary School will get $19,214 for two playgrounds and a walking track.

‰Ashland Child Development will get $6,000 for a playground.

‰Lakeside Elementary School in Elliott County will get $43,312 for a fitness trail.

‰Bath County schools will receive grants for a football field ($32,812) at the high school and an athletic field at Bath County Middle School ($32,812).

‰In Lewis County, Tollesboro Elementary School will receive $52,677 for a playground and the Kiddie Kastle Daycare will get $10,833 for a playground.

The grants are from the Waste Tire Trust Fund, established by the 1998 Kentucky General Assembly to receive a $1 fee from each sale of a new tire in the state. The fund is dedicated to managing the 5 million scrap tires generated in Kentucky each year and to developing markets for recycled tire products. The program is administered by the Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet’s Division of Waste Management.

Ponderosa’s grant will save the school money in the long run because the rubber surface is more durable than the mulch previously used, said Principal Kathy Rice.

The mulch decays, gets scattered and has to be replaced, but the rubber is virtually permanent, she said.

Ponderosa will use the rubber on its just-finished playground and on an existing playground for younger students, said PTA President Rebecca Hearn.

The grant also brings Ponderosa closer to being able to construct a walking track, which when finished will be open to the community as well as the school, she said.

The track will provide a safe place for walking in a rural part of Boyd County that doesn’t have sidewalks, she said.

Crumb rubber is “a perfect solution” for the fitness trail at Lakeside, said Deanna Albright, a teacher at the school. The surfacing is safer, more durable and promotes recycling, she said.

Beshear said the crumb rubber grants program encourages environmental stewardship, which is both environmentally sound and economically sensible.

The crumb-rubber process starts with waste tires, which are shredded. Magnets remove metal from steel belts, leaving nothing but small black fragments.

The rubber can also be ground even finer, spread on athletic fields and planted with grass.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2652.