Rubber flooring: Is It Safe For A Healthy Lifestyle?
Rubber is nearly usually suggested as the best flooring for a home gym when people inquire. Rubber flooring is the best choice for your home gym since it offers so many advantages. However, it's crucial that you use the proper rubber. If not, you can encounter a number of issues, not the least of which is stink. And we're not referring about the stench that makes you think, "Oh, it kind of smells like tyres in here." We are referring to the noxious off-gassing stench that makes me feel like I have a headache that won't go away.
Pros And Cons Of Rubber Flooring
Rubber has many advantages as a flooring material, but it also has certain disadvantages. You can choose the finest option for your home gym by being aware of both before making a purchase.
PROS
- Versatile. There are countless sizes and forms that can be carved out of rubber flooring and ordered.
- Durable. Rubber flooring outperforms all other alternatives in terms of durability and long-term aesthetic appeal in a gym.
- Strong. Do you want to deadlift then lose 500 pounds? Rubber can take care of you.
- Jointly benevolent When moving big objects, a rubber floor will give ample padding to save your knees, ankles, and back.
- Protective. Rubber protects the floor below from harm.
- Quiet. Rubber will reduce noise in your home gym and muffle the sound of fallen weights.
- Anti-static. Workouts throughout the winter won't be shocking.
- Grip. When weighty items are over your head, you must maintain solid foundation.
- Affordable. If you know where to find, it's among the least expensive flooring materials you can purchase.
CONS
- Staining. Rubber is permeable and readily gets stained.
- Flammable. It is not at all flame resistant. If you're using a space heater, raise it off the floor or place it on a ceramic tile for safety.
- The edges could peel and curl. especially if you buy stall mats for dirt cheap.
- It may have an awful odour. If you make the wrong purchase, your gym will smell for years (another problem with stall mats).
- It may release harmful substances. Once more, choosing the wrong item (often based only on price) might result in not just a smelly gym but also health issues (you guessed it, a problem with stall mats).
Is Rubber Flooring Eco-Friendly?
Indeed, both natural rubber flooring and recycled rubber flooring are highly environmentally beneficial. Although some synthetic rubber also comprises recycled rubber, the processing of petroleum is necessary.
Recycled Rubber
About 290 million waste tyres are produced annually in the United States, and many of them are burnt or buried, releasing pollutants into the atmosphere. This may be avoided by recycling these tyres, which also provides rubber a second chance as a new product. Recycling rubber reduces the amount of tyres that are burned, which benefits the environment.
Environmental Impact of Rubber
One of the biggest producers of recycled rubber goods, Ecore, saved almost 100 million pounds of truck tyres from landfills in 2018 and uses 62 percent post-consumer recycled material in its products. Even after being filtered out, dust, pebbles, and aluminium waste are recycled at Ecore!
All of this is to argue that recycled rubber affects the environment in a measurable way. Rubber recycling uses less energy than the production of synthetic rubber, and it also enables the recovery of millions of tyres from landfills. So you can feel good about your decision as you perform a few burpees!
Conclusion
Rubber flooring is considered to be safe. In fact, there have been 110 scientific studies of recycled rubber and none so far have found an associated health risk.
