I used to have a company called Timberline which manufactured a whole range of play equipment and outdoor classrooms for schools in the UK and as the name of the organisation would suggest, everything we produced was made out of timber. That was a few years ago now.

Then recently on my many visits to see schools up and down the country, I began to notice in the playground that a lot of picnic tables/BBQ tables were no longer made out of timber (as we used to supply them) but out of recycled plastic instead. Some I saw were even in bright primary colours to add a bit more creativity to them.

I happened to be on a trip to Germany seeing a potential distributor over there who took me round a few schools and kindergartens and again I noticed that in every school I went to in that area of Germany they had playground equipment also manufactured out of recycled plastic. I managed to track down the German company who manufactured ad supplied this and after undertaking some due diligence found out that this company’s turnover had increased seven times over a period of just three years! Seven times. And for love nor money could you find a product in their range made of out timber – not even a component.

And that is why we have just developed a new range of trim trail school playground equipment made of out the same material as that afore-mentioned German company. And do you want to know why this is the future? This material has so many additional benefits over and above timber such as it doesn’t rot or decay, it is made from recycled plastic bottles (so instead of filling up landfill and the world’s oceans with this wretched stuff we get to use it in a more positive way and help the environment along the way – pat yourself on the back for that one Eco Schools), it lasts about 10 times longer than timber so some real savings here for a school, children cannot get splinters off it, it is a lot harder to vandalise than timber, you can easily dig the posts into the ground without any fear of eventual rot setting in below the surface and it doesn’t degrade or discolour with UV light.

For further information on this range, please contact the Hideout House Company on 01832 275902, email info@hideouthouse.com or visit the website www.hideouthouse.com

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