Lodha Casa Bella, Dombivili

As the name suggests, safety flooring is safer than any standard flooring made of cement or asphalt. It cushions the users from fall and thus avoids injury. There are more applications that set a rubberized safe floor ahead of others. Here are a few such safety flooring benefits that users derive.

Anti-slip properties

Rubberized flooring can reduce injury to its users by minimizing slips and hence falls. A recreational park, Noida’s Worlds of Wonder uses safe flooring to protect its patrons at the wet areas such as near swimming pools. It has installed Playsafe Premium flooring to cover the areas around its water parks to avoid its customers (mostly children) from slipping and falling. “The anti-slip properties of Playsafe protect our customers when they are near the pools,” said Ankit Chandi, senior official at Worlds of Wonder.

Yuvabharathi Public School, Coimbatore

Aesthetic appeal

Niranjan Shimpi, CEO at Ecoflex said that his company never marketed its products for its aesthetic appeal. “However, aesthetics certainly is part of the positive attributes of safety flooring.” Architects who use safe floor for playgrounds come up with designs. Since a number of colour options are available, they can come up with designs like flowers, butterfly themes, various animal shapes like elephants, and many more, Shimpi said.

The Gateway School of Mumbai, which uses safe floor for its play area used a five-coloured theme for its flooring. The colour scheme starts from the classroom and leads right up to the play area. The play area, replete with all play equipment, keeps the students engaged. “Children also cycle there. Sometimes, children just lie around or roll on the floor,” said Anuj Iyer, Lead Teacher at The Gateway School of Mumbai.

Another school, American School of Bombay, has even used the flooring for branding by imprinting its logo on the rubberized surface. “We also did a wooden imprint of the logo for the school,” said Shimpi.

Hygiene assurance

Safety flooring surfaces are also comparatively much hygienic than play areas covered by sand or mud. They can be easily cleaned and wiped with mops, requiring little maintenance.

In case of mud or sand pits, there always are worries of children picking up infections due to bacteria or insects. This can be avoided in case of a safe floor. “At times, grass lawns can be as hygienic as rubberized safety flooring. But, they have to be regularly maintained,” said Shimpi. In comparison, it is cheaper and less time-consuming to clean safety flooring.