China Focus: Lax regulation blamed for shoddy school tracks

About a dozen running tracks in Chinese schools have been reported to have offensive odours, triggering calls to address lax regulation in this sector.

Two schools in Shenzhen are the latest addition to the list. Earlier, students in about ten schools in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shaanxi had reported symptoms including nosebleeds, dizziness and rashes, after new rubber running tracks were laid down in their schools.

Students at Meilian Primary School in Shenzhen have been transferred to other schools. Big electric fans are being used to disperse the pungent smell.

"Even adults felt irritation in their eyes and throat by the smell of the rubber, let alone the children," said a parent protesting outside the school.

Another angry mother who gave her son's name as Lele, a year 3 student at Meilian, said her son started coughing in October, and his blood test result shows abnormalities.

A test by the Futian district education bureau of Shenzhen showed toluene and xylol substances at 20 times the safe level, but bureau officials said the result is not reliable because it takes time for the rubber to volatilize and discharge its noxious.

"We plan to run another test in 14 days. If the test shows the rubber is still substandard, it will be removed," said an official with the education bureau.

A representative of the school parents' committee told Xinhua that they have demanded the school to replace rubber with grass.

Another school in Shenzhen, Nanshan Primary School affiliated with the Beijing Normal University, also met the same problem. Dozens of parents have demanded suspension of schooling, but school authorities insisted the rubber will fully volatilize in a few days. Trees have been felled at the school to help the rubber expose to sunshine and quicken the volatilization process.

Luo Zhenyang, professor of chemistry at Nanjing Forestry University, said most of the toxic substances did not from the rubber itself, but from the catalyst and plasticizer used during construction.

Plasticizer and catalysts are used to make the rubber less sticky, easier to apply to the ground, and shorten the period of construction, he said.

China has national standards for the quality of rubber as track material, but no standards for adhesives and additives used in the process of construction, said Shen Weimin, deputy director of Shanghai Quality Inspection and Supervision Bureau.

Shanghai has started to make local standards on such materials, he said.

The Shenzhen educational bureau has launched citywide check of rubber tracks built in the last two years. Endi