Twisted, towering, its metal surface glinted invitingly on a sweltering July afternoon. Of course we were going to climb the gravel littered steps and descend in our short striped shorts. Go down the tornado slide fast enough and nobody cared if we jumped off at the bottom with roasted legs.
People who lived in Alliance, or visited Central Park’s playground a few decades ago, may remember that corkscrew-shaped steel slide and the rest of the sturdy metal and wooden equipment. There was a bell the size of a teacher’s desk kids tried to rock, horse swings and even a house-shaped structure with what appeared to be a wood plank hampster-style wheel inside — I never remember that actually turning. This was before the museum expansion. The pillars, now being replaced, still stood and seemed as sturdy as ever back then.
Sometime between when the playground lost my attention and when I began working as a managing editor, that site took on a more modern look. I remember covering the transformation with a few photos and perhaps an article or two. However, in the years since, I have swept those memories away and just taken the playground for granted in the decade since my wife and I began raising our children.
On a recent winter bike ride my son and I stopped at the park to play. He usually prefers to ride on our route through the neighborhood without stopping. On this Friday after school though we stopped in the park. I sat back and kept track as he tried the slide then attempted to cross by grabbing a series of handholds. Soon a few signs on the edge caught my eye. I was reminded how the playground came to be — with substantial support from my current and former employers. One light yellow panel on the play structure reads: Welcome. This playground has been provided for your enjoyment with a grant from Alliance Clean Community System in partnership with KAB Inc./EPA and matched locally by the Alliance Times-Herald and Dayco. Play with care and consideration of others. . . .
How many people read this sign and the others? The contributions of the entities listed above has already benefited a generation that puts value on outdoor recreation.
There is an element of pessimism about recycling. At Keep Alliance Beautiful we tell people where the materials that pass through the recycling center door go. Saying that a box put into our baler will become a random box again does not persuade some people that the effort is worth their time. The slides, and everything else, at the Central Park playground is as tangible and closeby an example as I can imagine.
On the east side, near a bench, the “Recycled Materials At Work.” sign proclaims that the structure is made from “the equivalent of: 2,708 plastic containers, 25,518 aluminum cans, 17,186 soup cans, 11 car tires.” That does not even take into account the dozens of bags of rubber mulch filling the space below the equipment.
No, that playground is not as big as I remember many summers ago. It may or may not be safer. What it is, from my perspective, is proof that there is often a greener way to do things than the traditional way if the community wants a project to happen.
Reduce, reuse and support new ways to make recycling work for you.