the longview on sand

There are a few things we parents have to look out for when you provide a sand box for your child. Cats. Ants. Hell some kids even managed to land their 10-year old buddy in critical condition when they buried him head-down in sand up to his chest.

Well, I forgot to put the lid on the sand box one night, and a cat managed to make it into his oversized litter box. It was, shall we say, a smelly mess, and a real pain to dump out so we could start over.

Well, in the process of looking for sand on the Internet, I managed to find out that most of the inexpensive play sand on the market is not actually natural sand, but a product of quarried rocks. Quartz, actually. It's called crystalline silica. And wouldn't you know it, crystalline silica dust is a known carcinogen and repeated exposure to it can cause permanent lung damage. It's a well-known workplace hazard.

And I'd dare guess that 99 percent of us unsuspecting parents are buying this stuff by the pallet-load for our kids to play in. In my research, I've found bags of this so-called "play sand" for as little as $2.50, whereas the equivalent amount of real, natural sand costs at least 10 times that much. So us unsuspecting parents stick our children, with their rapidly developing lungs in this "play sand" and think all is well.

Not to be a complete alarmist, but seriously, how can these companies sell this crap to unsuspecting parents? The little warning label on the bag is so small and most people would never dream that even something as pure and innocent as play sand has become adulterated and toxic. The risk may be small, but it's a risk that is easily avoided and something we don't have to take. So we're not.

I haven't refilled the sand box yet, because real sand is prohibitively expensive.

It's amazing to me something as abundant and natural as real sand has been replaced by another man-made creation, in spite of the known health risks. Probably in the pursuit of higher profits and market share, at the expense of the health of our children. It's despicable.

Doesn't anyone take the longview anymore?