A playground slide northeast of Adelaide reaches unsafe temperatures of up to 73.6 degrees on hot days – a high enough temperature to burn skin.
A study by Tea Tree Gully Council, published late last month, compared the temperatures of slides across the council’s playgrounds on a 33-degree day.
It found the blue plastic slide at Modbury’s Civic Park was the hottest, reaching a top of 73.6 degrees in full sun at 3.30pm, despite the presence of shade sails.
The high temperature was blamed on an inconveniently positioned gap between the shade sails.
The playground’s red plastic slide was found to reach 66.3 degrees and its green plastic slide reached 64.2 degrees.
The rubber softfall reached a whopping 80.7 degrees at 12.45pm the same day.
A metal slide at Kaplan Reserve, St Agnes, which sparked resident concerns, reached a comparably cooler 40.5 degrees.
However, the council report noted stainless steel slides “can feel much hotter than plastic”, even at the same temperature, because of higher levels of thermal conductivity.
A 2021 University of Western Sydney study found five seconds of skin contact with a 74-degree plastic slide would result in a burn.
Touching an uncoated metal slide for five seconds, on the other hand, would result in a burn at just 57 degrees.
Jim Papazoglov, 68, who took his two-year-old grandson Lucas to Civic Park on Thursday, said he was not concerned by hot slides.
“If you bring your grandchild or your child to a playground and the kid touches it, and it’s hot to the touch, you’re not going to go down the slide, are you?” he said.
“I mean, we have got a brain. We’re not brain dead yet, are we?”
Mr Papazoglov, a former Port Lincoln councillor, said efforts by the council to study and reduce slide temperatures sounded like “bureaucracy at work”.
A Tea Tree Gully spokeswoman said a playground tree-planting program was being developed, prioritising the council area’s hottest playgrounds.
“Other ways to reduce heat in and around new playspaces include locating equipment in the shade of established trees, the use of lighter-coloured materials that absorb less heat and irrigated turf,” she said.
“With around 120 playgrounds across the City of Tea Tree Gully, any future improvements would need to be delivered over a number of years.
“Regarding Civic Park, there are five slides to choose from, with a number always available in the shade as the sun moves throughout the day.”
Alannah Ween, 42, who was wrangling her four-year-old twins at the park on Thursday, said she avoided parks without shade sails.
“Otherwise it can get quite hot for the kids,” she said. “Some of them do the metal (slides), and that’s not good at all.”