Protect Your Child From Arsenic Dangers
Order an arsenic testing kit from the Safe Playgrounds Project, which allows you to test the wood you already have. If you have arsenic treated wood at home, you should consider getting rid of it as directed below. When purchasing new wooden outdoor products buy products made after 2004 and make sure you get untreated wood that’s naturally rot resistant like cedar and redwood or choose a non-wood alternative like metal or composite materials.
If you can’t afford to replace your older wooden outdoor products and if you don’t want to ban your child from local, older playgrounds, take these other steps to protect your child from arsenic.
- Wood products are costly. If you can only afford to replace some wood, replace the wood products that your family is in contact with the most, such as the hand rails on your deck.
- Covering older wood with paint or sealant can reduce exposure. Seal wood with penetrating deck treatment, latex paint, or polyurethane annually.
- Never clean wood with a power pressure cleaner. Basically that’s akin to blasting arsenic right off wood and into your air and nearby soil.
- Don’t sand arsenic treated wood.
- After your kids play at the park, make sure they wash up. Research shows that the simple act of washing will remove arsenic residue from hands.
- Avoid eating at older picnic tables. Even if you seal the wood or use a tablecloth, the risk for exposure is simply too great. You don’t want to mix arsenic and food.
- Don’t allow kids to play in the soil or sand below or around arsenic-treated wood structures.
- Never burn arsenic-treated, or chromated copper arsenate (CCA) treated wood to get rid of it. Burning releases the arsenic into the air and just one tablespoon of ash from a CCA wood fire contains a lethal does of arsenic – so if your kids or a clean-up crew came into contact with it, they could be seriously hurt. The EPA notes, “Homeowners should never burn CCA-treated wood or use it as compost or mulch. CCA-treated wood can be disposed of with regular municipal trash (i.e., municipal solid waste, not yard waste). Homeowners should contact the appropriate state and local agencies for further guidance on the disposal of CCA-treated wood.“
+ Learn more about treated playground equipment (pdf)
+ The Safe Playgrounds Project
