Playground Safety and Recycling Grant Program

This program is no longer being funded.

The Playground Safety and Recycling Act Grant Program received 397 grant applications for the first cycle, which closed June 30, 2000. The Board awarded 90 grants at its November 14-15, 2000 meeting. A complete list of award recipients may be viewed on the Board’s grants database site.

This grant program was established to assist local educational agencies in using recycled-content materials to upgrade the State's public playgrounds, prevent injuries and satisfy the California Department of Health Services' playground safety regulations. Additionally, the use of recycled-content materials will help conserve resources and develop markets for these materials.

Project Background
Definition of "Playground"
Eligibility (participants and grant requirements)
Playground Inspections
Recycled-Content Materials

Project Background

Assembly Bill 1055 (Villaraigosa), Chapter 712, Statutes of 1999 established the Playground Safety and Recycling Act Grant Program, to be administered by the Board. The Fiscal Year 1999-2000 State Budget provided $2 million of Proposition 98 money to fund this program. The matching grant program provided grants to local educational agencies for the purpose of improving or replacing playgrounds to meet new State safety standards. The grant funds were used for these upgrades through the use of recycled-content materials.

Playground Definition

"Playground" means an improved outdoor area designed, equipped, and set aside for children's play that is not intended for use as an athletic playing field or athletic court, and includes in that area such facilities as play equipment, surfacing, fencing, signs, internal pathways, internal land forms, vegetation, and related structures.

Eligible Participants

The appropriation of $2 million from Proposition 98 was available to provide grants exclusively to eligible local educational agencies.

Applicant Eligibility

• Demonstrate the ability to provide a 50 percent match (of the total grant), which may be reduced to a 25 percent match (of the total grant), upon a finding by the Board that the 50 percent match requirement would impose an extreme financial hardship on the applicant.
• Guarantee that 50 percent of the grant funds will be used for the improvement or replacement of playground equipment or facilities through the use of recycled-content materials.
• The playground must have an initial inspection conducted by a Playground Inspector, certified by the National Playground Safety Institute, to determine the need to satisfy the regulations put forth by the Department of Health Services. This inspection must have occurred after January 1, 1998. The applicant will provide certification of inspection, which must be received in the Board's office by 3:00 p.m., Monday, August 7, 2000.

Playground Inspections

To obtain a partial list of certified playground inspectors, you may view the Boards Playground Safety Inspection Resource List. A complete listing of playground inspectors is available through the National Recreation and Park Association or California Parks and Recreation Society.

Recycled-Content Materials

Recycled products/materials containing recycled-content materials eligible for funding under the act include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Playground cover surfacing
• Play structures
• Wheelchair ramps
• Benches and tables

Recycled-content materials/products are all materials, goods, and supplies, no less than 50 percent of the total weight which consists of secondary and postconsumer material with not less than 10 percent of its total weight consisting of post-consumer material. A recycled product shall include any product that could have been disposed of as solid waste having completed its life cycle as a consumer item, but otherwise is refurbished for reuse without substantial alteration of its form.

See our playground equipment manufacturers list and the Board's Recycled-Content Products Database for more information (on the database search page, type "playground" in the search box and hit the "submit" button).

Last updated: November 01, 2007