Better performance, lower cost

Charles Lawrence’s development work since then has been directed to bringing down the capital cost of surfacing able to give the required performance, and at the same time improving its durability, so improving total Life Cycle Cost.

The crucial breakthrough came when we discovered that the rubber used for commercial-vehicle tyres has ideal elastic properties for playground surfacing – and is available very cheaply in old, unwanted casings.  In order to secure ourselves a feedstock of known quality, and to achieve economies of scale, we designed and built our own plant to recycle old tyres into rubber granules.  This currently processes nearly 350,000 tyres a year and produces some 10,000 tons of granules.

The process of improvement never ends. The present version of Playtop^® is the fifth clearly distinct product, but we are continually finding ways to improve our playground surfacing – for example by varying the granule sizes and developing stronger binders.

As Playtop^® moves beyond Britain into a growing number of overseas markets, we are confident that it will remain the market leader in impact-absorbing surfacing for many more years to come.

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