Recycled BC rubber could be put in place on the new Westview Elementary School playground.
School District 47 secretary treasurer Steve Hopkins said an opportunity came up for Powell River Board of Education to apply to the BC Tire Stewardship grant recently.
“It’s not a sure thing in that we’re just applying for the grant but if we’re successful in the grant then we’ll use that product instead of what we had originally planned,” he said. “We see this as being somewhat superior, although, if we don’t get the grant, we’re quite happy with the product we were going to use.”
He added he isn’t sure about the timeline on hearing back about the grant but the work itself likely won’t be completed until near the end of summer. Hopkins said using recycled rubber would mean less mess both outside and inside the school.
“The product we were going to use is like a pellet,” he said. “Any kind of pellet, sand, gravel, anything like that that can be disturbed is going to get kicked around and therefore out of the playground. You’re always going to have to top up over time. Stuff is going to get tracked into the building potentially whereas the rubber is a solid mat which doesn’t get disturbed.”
Other benefits of using recycled rubber in places like playgrounds is that it is designed to meet Canadian Standards Association’s fall height standards, it is wheelchair accessible, is all-weather use and meets BC’s green procurement policy. Hopkins added it gives a benefit to the contractors working on the school, as well.
“It would provide additional LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] points for the contractor toward our LEED Gold certification for the building because of the use of recycled rubber,” he said. “So the contractor gains something there in that they’re required to produce a LEED Gold building and we get something in that we get a product that would be easier to maintain in the long term than the alternative.”
According to the Tire Stewardship website, BC has been recycling tires for such projects since 1991. In that time, over 50 million tires have been recycled.
Westview school is scheduled for completion in December 2012 and will replace Grief Point Elementary School.
