Parks to upgrade from sand, tan bark to rubber material
You’ll have an extra bounce or two or three in your step at six
Hollister parks in the coming year because the city is replacing
sand and tan bark at those locations’ playgrounds with rubber made
from recycled tires.
Parks to upgrade from sand, tan bark to rubber material
You’ll have an extra bounce or two or three in your step at six Hollister parks in the coming year because the city is replacing sand and tan bark at those locations’ playgrounds with rubber made from recycled tires.
Hollister is progressing on the projects after receiving a $149,000 grant award from the California Integrated Waste Management Board to replace the current materials while diverting thousands of tires from heading to a landfill. It will involve replacing the playground floors – whether it be sand or chips – at the six parks.
They include Tony Aguirre Park, John Z. Hernandez Park, Dunne Park, Las Brisas Park, Valley View Park and Frank Klauer Park.
For Hollister, the grant allows the city to replace the current materials – at no cost because there is no required match – which are perceived by industry analysts as less safe than the more absorbent rubber, said Clay Lee, Hollister’s community services director.
“These materials provides better shock absorbency than sand,” he said.
From the state’s perspective, it is an opportunity to divert millions of pounds of rubber tire statewide from landfills to other, sustainable uses.
The “Tire-Derived Products” program run by the state is the second-largest organized reuse of tires in the country, according to the waste board’s Web site, which estimates Californians use four to five million tires per year.
“It diverts a pretty good chunk of material,” Lee said, regarding the upcoming local park projects.
Pretty good, as in 41,000 tires-worth of rubber, he noted.
Lee got that estimate because Hollister officials had to know some projections for the necessary rubber and costs to conduct the project. On the application’s quantity estimates, the city enlisted voluntary help from Hollister-based West Coast Rubber Recycling.
Lee said West Coast intended to submit a bid but he stressed that there are no obligations to use the business. Hollister must, in fact, follow the normal bidding process for public projects.
The city will send out those requests for proposals soon. Lee estimated the city would start the first of six replacement projects in the late summer or early fall and Hollister would finish the last one by the end of the year or the start of 2010. He explained that the city will have to temporarily close each of those parks when the projects begin to remove the current materials before installing the recycled rubber.
Councilman Doug Emerson made the announcement about the grant to council members at their meeting Monday.
“I think it’s just great,” Emerson told The Pinnacle afterward. “Those materials used to go in the dumps.”
