One of the fondest memories any child can have is going to the local playground and spending hours playing and climbing up and down the various structures, swing sets and jungle gyms available. Play is incredibly important because it stimulates development. If children don’t get the chance to experience play (which benefits their motor skills) within the first six years of life, it will limit how they grow in the future. Therefore, it’s very important to make sure that some form of commercial playground is readily available and in good repair. However, repair doesn’t have to involve completely replacing the broken equipment and this article sets out to show why replacing equipment isn’t the only option.
Many times, when commercial playground equipment falls into disrepair, the city park service will choose to completely replace all of the playground parts instead of fixing only what is broken. This is a very expensive and time-consuming process that is actually very inefficient. Instead, the crews in charge of maintenance should maintain a supply of playground repair supplies that can be used to fix various elements. For example, storing plastic playground borders can make it easy to replace the playground border if a section breaks. Or, another example, keeping seats for swing sets or replacement bolts for a park bench can enable a quick and easy repair instead of taking the time (and extra cost) to remove the broken item and replacing it with a completely new item.
The benefits of repairing an item in a timely fashion instead of taking extra time to replace it cannot be overstated, especially if the issue involves school playground equipment. Given that hundreds of kids take over the playground every week day for recess, it is crucial for school maintenance workers to have the ability to quickly repair a broken piece of equipment, which will prevent young children from getting hurt. As it would be a huge liability for children to get hurt on school grounds, keeping repair kits on hand would help to avoid this potential disaster.
In conclusion, there are great financial benefits to repairing broken commercial playground equipment instead of replacing it outright, not to mention repairs can generally be made more quickly, ensuring that children are less likely to injure themselves on the damaged equipment. Plus, keeping spare parts and repair kits on hand (as opposed to replacing all of the equipment) ensures that the majority of the playground equipment can be used and maintained for many years instead of being constantly and needlessly replaced.
