Many parents will know the feeling of being at a soft play and wincing as your child dives head first into the ball pit. It doesn’t matter how well or often they clean, it’s hard to imagine that they could sanitise every single ball in the ball pit. And who knows what on earth could be lurking at the bottom! A recent news article has seen the cleanliness of soft play come back into public discussion, and we thought we’d explore the claims that soft play is unsanitary – and also talk about how we differ here at Wild Things!
You might have seen a recent article about Harry Potter star Jessie Cave’s unpleasant recent visit to her local soft play centre.
It’s currently the summer holidays, and soft play is one of the most popular activities to keep kids busy on rainy and sunny days alike. However, when Jessie took her four young children to her local soft play centre, she was shocked to see furry balls of mould lurking in the cracks and crevices. This led Jessie to take to TikTok to pose the question – how clean is soft play really?
Jessie said, “we go to soft play because we want out kids to be happy, sure. But we also know that we will get sick almost immediately as soon as we leave the soft play.”
Is it true – is soft play a health hazard? And is there an alternative that will keep our kids and health happy?
We’ve previously written about a notable article by The Guardian that shone a light on all of the germs that might be lurking on the brightly-coloured plastic surfaces of a soft play.
The story highlighted findings that 99.9% of soft plays were contaminated in some way or another. And another study found that the dirtiest ball pit contained around 170,818 bacteria per ball. Out of the 31 types of bacteria and yeast found to commonly exist in soft play centres, 9 of them are known to cause disease to humans.
While it’s not unusual to find bacteria in the same places you find people (especially young children), these findings beg the question – is plastic the most sanitary material for these bacteria-filled spaces?
The thing that makes soft play soft, is the wipe-clean plastic-coated padding surrounding every single surface.
A recent report compiled data on the amount of time that common viruses lived on different surfaces. The study found that influenza germs lived on plastic surfaces for 24 to 48 hours.
Whereas, the germs on porous surfaces like wood, only remained intact for 4 hours.
This is one of the several fantastic reasons that our indoor play centre reimagines soft play, swapping plastic for wood to create a more natural, eco-friendly play space!
Play doesn’t have to be plastic to be fun! In fact, we think our reimagined soft play is better for our little ones. So why not give us a try?
Come and pay us a visit, Find us in The Mall at Cribbs Causeway, right next to Nando’s.
Or explore our website to find out more about our mission to reimagine soft play, or check out our blog for articles about budget-friendly kids parties and enriching play!
Article written by Eleanor Margaret.
Times & Prices