Toxic Playgrounds

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Consumers can help shape that market by voting with their wallets. In the meantime, activists are launching a nationwide campaign to encourage testing of playground equipment for arsenic. Next week the Consumer Product Safety Commission will begin a new study to assess the arsenic risk kids face in playgrounds, and the EPA plans similar investigations in the fall. The EPA is also reviewing more than 300 pesticides (including the arsenic in CCA) to decide whether it will continue to approve their use. With the current flap over CCA, there is a fair chance arsenic won't make the cut.

Whatever CCA's ultimate fate, the existing problem will probably be with us for a long time. Even when a playground is torn down, the wood must still be disposed of--not an easy thing to do. Dumping it in an unlined landfill allows arsenic to seep underground. Mulching it scatters CCA on the surface. And burning it fills the air with toxic smoke. Leaving the structures to disintegrate on their own could take a while. CCA is such an effective preservative that those pressure-treated wooden forts and castles might still be standing a generation from now. In retrospect, the old metal swings and jungle gyms are starting to look pretty good.