Restaurants Urged To Clean Up Fast-Food Playgrounds

Fast-food chains have been under fire for what goes into their kids’ meals. Now playground cleanliness is the focus of at least one mom traveling the country with cotton swabs and a camcorder. The Chicago Tribune reported last month on the road trip undertaken by developmental psychologist Erin Carr-Jordan, who said she has visited more than 50 fast-food playgrounds and discovered sticky surfaces, filmy windows, broken equipment, food and hair trapped in compartments, garbage, and a thick black substance in most crevices.

Carr-Jordan has been sending swabs of her findings to a lab that she said found Staphylococcus and other bacteria. A microbiology professor is working with her to collect and analyze the data to spur legislators to act on the issue; one of their goals is to put regulations in place that would require cleaning the play spaces on a regular basis.