You may not think the smallest things such as kids playing at playgrounds couldn’t be dangerous. Think again, in New Orleans Howard Mielke of Tulane University's Center for Bioenvironmental Research found arsenic, which is an element that has a metallic luster and vaporizes when heated. While searching for arsenic with a portable X-ray fluorescence they found 36 percent of the sites visited were contaminated and only 38 were examined. Researchers toke a bit of soil and mimic the pH of a child’s stomach. I am shocked that this hasn’t been discovered before, many children must have gotten sick because of arsenic on a children’s playground. After examining the soil Mielke says, “is that the median arsenic concentration was on the order of 57 parts per million. This compares with the median of 1.5 ppm in soils generally throughout the city of New Orleans.” when the school was informed with the dangers for the arsenic they replaced the tainted chips with untreated bark. Luckily this problem was found and treated before it got worse. This shows that it is worthwhile surveying play areas.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
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