Cancer Fears Over Playground Equipment

Copper chrome arsenate (CCA) is a toxic chemical found in children’s playground equipment. It is used to prevent rotting in pine products in equipment across Australia, including playgrounds in schools, parks and child-care centres. It is possible that the chemical could be banned after a report suggested exposure to it could massively increase a child’s chance of contracting lung cancer and bladder cancer. According to a petition to the US Environmental Protection Authority by the US Government’s Consumer Products Safety Commission, between two and one hundred children in every one million will get bladder and lung cancer from exposure to arsenic. Arsenic is a known carcinogen and is contained in the chemic

However, most people believe that we should get rid of all equipment treated with CCA, no matter how small the risk may be. If between two and one hundred children in every one million will get bladder and lung cancer, then that is far too many. Most parents want their children to be fully healthy; they don’t want to know that their children might have a massively increased chance of contracting lung cancer and bladder cancer just because they played on some play equipment. They would want to reduce the risk to their own children, and, indeed, to the children of other parents. The petition suggests that children wash their hands after playing with the equipment and says that they shouldn’t eat in its vicinity. I think that many parents would agree that it’s hard enough to get children to wash their hands afte

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