The Play Mart Blog

It's Always Nice to Get Kudos From Great Customers!

2010-07-30T07:19:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while companies come across great customers who come back again and again. Here at Play Mart, one such customer is Harper Construction in San Diego, California. We received this kind word from Paul Olson, VP of Quality Assurance, and we thought we'd pass it along,

“What a great experience it was to work with the wonderful people from Play Mart. I could not have asked for more from the estimating phase all the way though the installation. The honesty and personal attention I received from this family owned business was top notch. Our customers love the equipment that Play Mart provided and Play Mart has stood behind their equipment every step of the way. Thank you Play Mart!!”

While we experience great connections with our customers on a daily basis, it's fantastic to receive such positive feedback from time to time. Thanks Paul!

Play Mart Featured in the ASLA journal, LANDonline

2010-03-23T10:59:00.000-07:00

Annual Meeting Sponsor Spotlight: Play Mart
Play Mart is demonstrating its commitment to ASLA and its members by sponsoring signs at the Annual Meeting.

Play Mart has been manufacturing playgrounds for nearly 30 years and has spearheaded the use of environmentally friendly materials in the playground industry. Now, as a leader in recycled plastic playground equipment, Play Mart continues to design and manufacture high-quality products while maintaining a high percentage of recycled content in product materials and reducing energy and resource waste in the manufacturing process.
Play Mart's literally groundbreaking Nature At Play™ line, introduced in 2009, offers products that allow caregivers to easily provide young children with the opportunity to authentically experience nature—water, sand, dirt, insects, butterflies, birds, vegetable gardening, plants, flowers, and music. Play Mart's new natural play products are designed so that even an infant can be allowed to be outside in a protective environment and experience some aspect of the natural world. Musical instrument play components, gardening beds and bowls, and vine-covered arch hideaways represent products that are developmentally and anatomically designed for the very young child and meet ASTM/CPSC guidelines. Furthermore, the products are made from recycled, nontoxic, heavy-duty, low-maintenance materials and are modular in design.
Visit Play Mart Inc.'s website at www.playmart.com for a wealth of information on how Play Mart is Recovering yesterday's plastics for today's playTM. Playgrounds by Play Mart, a leading manufacturer of recycled plastic playground equipment, contain 100 percent recycled plastic with an outstanding warranty. Recycled products contribute toward LEED-certified projects. Products are low maintenance: no splinters, no chipping, no fading, graffiti removes easily, and vandal-resistant stainless steel hardware and stainless steel welds on our exclusive metal components won't corrode or rust. Visit www.ipema.org for certified products.
Browse Play Mart's online product catalog of age- and ability-appropriate (ADA accessible) commercial play systems, park and site amenities. Surf through play elements and modular structures designed for early childhood (six weeks to 23 months), preschool (two to five years), and elementary-age children (five to 12 years), plus fitness equipment for older children and adults, swings, park amenities (benches, tables, trash receptacles), and ADA-accessible “Boundaryless” components for all ages. Play Mart's equipment comes in two primary sizes: Mega 6-by-6-inch recycled posts and Mini 4-by-4-inch recycled posts. Each playground can be modified with a variety of color choices ranging from bright and primary to subdued and natural.
A woman-owned/family-owned small business providing jobs to a rural community in southeast Kentucky, Play Mart distributes its products through a network of wholesale dealers across the United States and a limited number of international dealers. Customers include state, county, and city parks; private and public schools; private and public housing; private and public daycare facilities; and religious institutions. In addition, under GSA contract #GS-07F-0206L Play Mart's products are purchased at a significant discount by the military, Corps of Engineers, U.S. embassies, child development centers, and a wide variety of other government entities through our dedicated in-house GSA/Military Sales Team. Play Mart is Recovering yesterday's plastics for today's playTM.

As found in the American Society of Landscape Architects' Journal, LANDonline
http://land.asla.org/2010/0323/playmart.html

GreenBuild's Top 5 Green Building Products for Schools - from ecomii

2009-12-01T12:29:00.001-08:00

GreenBuild's Top 5 Green Building Products for Schools - from ecomii

Posted using ShareThis

Play Mart Photo Tour - Northeast

2009-07-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

Hi There Play Mart Fans!

Many miles and many snaps of the shutter later, we recently uploaded hundreds of fantastic images of Play Mart playgrounds in the northeast United States onto a photo hosting site called SmugMug.

Check out this and other great structures in some well-known locations in New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, Virginia and New England. As Play Mart expands its presence into more and more of the United States and internationally, it's fun to share so many recent playground installations with our fans.

As always, we value your comments, so please keep them coming! When you're done viewing these pictures, stop by our Facebook page and www.playmart.com for more news and useful tools for your playground project.

In Recognition of the National Day of Service, Play Mart Suggests a Year of Service

2009-01-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

After getting an email recently from the National Recreation and Park Association, of which Play Mart is a member, regarding President-elect Obama's service initiative, USASERVICE.ORG, we here at Play Mart got together to see how we could get involved. Coupling Play Mart's passions for play and service, we felt that this initiative would be a perfect fit for us to get kids playing and help channel good works back into our communities.

So we have come up with a list of suggested service projects for our friends, customers and Play Mart family to consider this year, rather than during just one day. This year, you ask? This year. Why? Because as this blog is being written, the mercury shows 15 degrees Fahrenheit, and we're situated far enough south that we don't often get this cold! So unless you're fortunate enough to be reading this from sunny Hawaii, you might want to gather the troops now for a service project this Spring or Summer when the thermometer is a little higher up the scale!

The following is only a brief list of suggestions for you and your friends to consider. Your only limitation is your imagination. Give us some feedback as your ideas blossom into action this Spring!

Surfacing. Why not rake, sift, clean and refill your local playground's safety surfacing? It's relatively inexpensive and can really make a difference in the safety of your playground. If needed, Play Mart can supply you with the right kind of surfacing for a great price.

Removal of graffiti is another relatively simple, but impactful way to sustain both the look and longevity of your local playground. Take pictures of the before and after and share them with us!

Borders. Borders are a crucial component of your playground's overall safety. Borders help contain the safety surfacing within the necessary area; thereby reducing the need for frequent refills. If your borders are damaged or missing, contact Play Mart for more information on playground borders.

Repairs. Make a list of needed playground repairs and submit them to your city/county council. You might even offer to organize a fundraiser to pay for repairs beyond the abilities of your volunteers.

A New Playground. Have a fundraiser to buy new playground equipment, either for your neighborhood, an underprivileged neighborhood or even a local shelter. Contact Play Mart for great fundraising ideas.

Day of Play. Organize a day of play for the community or neighborhood. Get to know your neighbors by reaching out to them with play. Why not organize such a play day for underprivileged children? Have a "carnival" with food, games and prizes. Many local businesses would love to sponsor such an event for exposure and contribution to the community.

Community Contest. How about a community contest between local schools to help raise monies for a neighborhood playground? Nothing can generate contributions and excitement like a little healthy competition!

These are just a few suggestions. Get creative. Get excited. Get out of your box. Get out and play. But most importantly, get out and serve!

New Video! From Milk Jugs to Playgrounds

2008-08-14T08:33:00.000-07:00

Play Mart has recently produced a short (4:26) video that explains our manufacturing process: taking milk jugs (#2 HDPE post-industrial plastic) and using them to create innovative recycled commercial playground equipment.

This video is a great teaching tool, whether it is used in the classroom or the boardroom. Produced from a kid's point of view, students and business professionals alike will be able to appreciate Play Mart's commitment to producing a world-class, environmentally friendly product: a product that diverted nearly one million pounds of plastic from landfills in 2007.

If you think this video would be a helpful tool in your classroom, boardroom or whatever room, we invite you to contact us at (800) 43-PLAYS (437-5297) for your complimentary DVD. Once you have viewed our story, please let us know how we can help you put recovered milk jugs to work at a playground near you!

And we want to hear from you! Tell us what you think about our new video! We'll be showing it to people all over the country this fall at trade shows in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Dallas, Las Vegas and Boston. More importantly, we're glad you had a chance to get this first look at our process online, from wherever you are!

Play Mart: Recovering yesterday's plastic for today's play

GetWithGreen.com Reviews Play Mart Playgrounds

2008-07-08T06:45:00.000-07:00

It's one thing to read assessments of Play Mart by Play Mart. It is most definitely another thing to read a review about Play Mart by another source - especially when it includes reviews of many of our competitors! Factor in the green angle in which this particular review was written, then we certainly have something to share with the readers of our blog!

According to their website, GetWithGreen.com provides home-owners, designers and those in the home construction and remodeling industry with the most in-depth news and information surrounding eco-friendly and sustainable products for home remodel projects.

We invite you to take a look at the article, LANDSCAPING: Looking for eco-friendly backyard playstructure equipment? at GetWithGreen.com

Once you've had a chance to read the article, we encourage you to take a moment and post a comment, especially if you already have experience with Play Mart playground equipment. Finally, please check back here and share your experiences with us on our blog.

The link to the article on GetWithGreen.com is: http://www.getwithgreen.com/2007/08/29/landscaping-looking-for-eco-friendly-backyard-playstructure-equipment/#more-71

Enjoy this Summer with play!

Welcome to the very first Play Mart blog!

2008-06-27T07:46:00.000-07:00

Hi there. We are thrilled to have you read our blog. Whether you already have a Play Mart playground, you are looking at Play Mart playgrounds, you are interested in environmentally friendly products or just found us by accident, we encourage you to join the conversation.

Please grab the feed, using any one of the many RSS readers or stop by our Facebook page to keep in touch with all things Play Mart. Be looking for new blog posts, new photos and a new website coming very soon.