Centipedes for Playmates?

There's a lot of obvious precautions we can take to make our island playgrounds safer. Some of these include installing the safe and well designed playground equipment, making certain that our play areas have well trained supervisors, and scheduling regular inspections by certified professionals.

Some precautions are not so obvious and controlling harmful insects is likely one of those that didn't likely make your top ten list. The problem is two fold: Not only are our children more vulnerable to insect bites and stings but they generally born no fear of them. For this reason, the Hawaiian Centipede is the last playmate you want your child to share the playground with.

Hawaiian Centipede


Centipedes are found in dark, moist areas that harbor very small bugs and spiders. A playground with woodchips (or wood fiber) installed as a safety surface is a perfect example such an environment. The wood underneath the surface never dry out completely and entry to the area can come from the surrounding grass, a nearby bush, or tree.

So you do know a child that plays in one of these playgrounds? The first thought when you see small bugs, spiders, and especially centipedes is to extinguish those bad bugs! Call a pest control company! Run down to City Mill and clean out the pest control chemicals! Pour Borax around the border of the playground! These are all usually good first steps, except for one very important detail. Our children play there and none of the standard remedies for insect infestation are safe for a playground. We do not want any these chemicals within miles of where our children play. If bugs have made your playground a home, there's very little you can do and maintain a safe chemical free play area.

While I am not qualified to assist you on declaring a war on centipedes, I can tell you from my personal experience that the best defense is not an offense at all. It's good planning and research of what is available to surface your playground and gaining the understanding that just because a product is sold nationally at great volume and meets the requirements for some federal laws doesn't mean that it is the best choice for you in Hawaii. Our office gets regular phone calls asking for the removal of woodchips from playgrounds and we'll always nicely inquire how the decision was made to install the woodchips in the first place. If the person is still around (and not in a boiling pot somewhere) we mainly hear three reasons.

1. The salesmen told me that the chips will repels bugs or the chips are made of 100% cedar.
2. It was cheaper than other surfacing options.
3. Our playground is subject to state and federal law and we needed to meet ADA requirements.

Number one is simply a question of ethics. Even if the chips were all cedar, any wood will decompose and mix with the soil and other organic materials that will get into our playgrounds. Eventually a a food source for centipedes is created and the longer the wood is there, the better it will become. It is my understanding that all wood chip products are made from all types of scrap lumber and not 100% cedar as is the common claim. I checked the specifications of the most common brand of woodchips sold in Hawaii and the "type" of wood used is suspiciously missing. Buyer beware.
http://www.engineeredwoodfiber.com/playground/specifications_general.html

Number two depends on how you define cost. The initial material and installation costs of woodchips is cheaper than other surfacing products. It is important to remember that only the "installed price" is cheaper and that the maintenance and ongoing replenishment and maintenance costs are very high for woodchips and much lower for other products. So in the life of your playground, you might be surprised what you actually end up paying for a woodchip surface.

Number three is a true legal advantage that woodchips have over other loose fill surfaces such as sand or pea gravel. Like unitary and some loose fill rubber surfaces, woodchips are considered accessible and compliant with current ADA law. I share a common belief among many playground professionals that woodchip surfacing only is able to maintain this rating because of their strong lobby in Washington and the involvement of the major woodchip manufacturers in passing the legislation in the first place. I encourage anyone curious about this to do their own field test. Go out and actually try to navigate a wheelchair through woodchips that have just been installed and you will see what I mean. I think your results will be the same as ours; only in a very compacted (hard) state where the chips are moist or very packed down (remember this is a safety surface designed to protect your child from falls) from heavy use can a wheelchair navigate over a woodchip surface.

Here's a link to the Bishop Museum's website and a little more about centipedes in Hawaii. If you look around on the Internet, you'll find that centipedes can be a very emotional topic for some.

http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/good-bad/centipede-full.html

Here's some good information about non-toxic controlling of centipedes. See if you get chicken skin like I did when you read about the catch and release method!

http://www.beyondpesticides.org/alternatives/factsheets/CENTIPEDE%20CONTROL.pdf

In closing, our children are born with a wonderful but potentially dangerous blind trust. Teach them to "look before they play" and make it your personal responsibility to help them know what to look for.