grassestimate.com artificial turf leader
NEW YORK - They're always green, never need mowing and can be used by
young athletes in fair weather and foul.
But in many places across the country, artificial turf fields are
becoming as hotly contested as some of the soccer and football games
that are played on them.
A new generation of synthetic grass, made in part with ground-up
rubber from used tires, has proved increasingly popular for schools
and parks as a way to reduce maintenance costs and raise the usage of
athletic fields. In addition to needing no mowing, they require no
watering, fertilizing or weeding, and they dry faster after rain and
hold up to wear and tear better than grass.
But in communities from Connecticut to California, some
environmentally conscious parents have raised questions about the
fields, focusing on the possibility that children could be exposed to
toxins from used tires and to lead in the dyes used in many types of
artificial grass.
"I don't want my kid inhaling that or bringing it home on his shoes,"
said Patricia Taylor, a Connecticut woman who became concerned about
artificial turf fields when her 12-year-old son, Liam, came home with
rubber crumbs in his hair and black rubber dust on his skin.
Questions about the safety of the fields have led legislators in
Minnesota, New Jersey and New York to introduce bills that would bar
the installation of additional artificial turf fields until those
states complete health and environmental studies. Less sweeping bills
in California and Connecticut call for health studies but would not
prohibit new fields.
Industry representatives defend the fields as safe and say the
concerns about health and environmental effects are based on
hypothetical risks.
"For over 40 years, there has never been a case of human illness or
environmental damage arising out of any of the materials used in
synthetic turf," said Rick Doyle, president of the Atlanta-based
Synthetic Turf Council.
Unlike the first generation of artificial turf, developed in the 1960s
and marketed as AstroTurf, newer fields are not hard mats of nylon
grass, which many professional athletes have said can cause increased
knee and foot injuries.
The new fields more closely resemble natural turf because sand and
"crumb rubber" made from ground-up tires are spread on the fields and
settle between the blades of artificial grass, resembling the dirt in
which real grass grows. That makes the fields softer and safer,
according to the turf council, which says 25 million tires are
recycled annually for use in the fields instead of being dumped in
landfills.
Although artificial-turf football or soccer fields can cost $1 million
to install, about twice as much as a grass field, they have proved
popular. An estimated 3,500 artificial fields of all kinds are in use
in the United States, and as many as 1,000 will be added this year,
Doyle said.
The fields have won generally good reviews from coaches and players,
but as more fields are installed in parks and at schools, some parents
have begun questioning their safety at the local and state level.
The issue attracted national attention this spring when two older
artificial fields in New Jersey were closed after the tests found high
lead levels in the fields' nylon fibers. Lead can cause brain damage,
especially in children younger than 6.
Since then, several other fields in New Jersey, New York and
Connecticut have been closed after failing lead tests, and the
Consumer Product Safety Commission has said it would investigate the
potential health effects of exposure to lead in artificial turf
fields.
Doyle said lead chromate, the lead compound used to color artificial
grass, is present in less than 10 percent of the pigments used and it
is incorporated in the plastic resin, meaning it does not wash or
flake off.
Focusing on lead misses the point, said Nancy Alderman, head of
Environmental and Human Health Inc., a nonprofit health advocacy group
in New Haven, Conn., which became involved in the issue after Taylor
and other Connecticut mothers asked it whether the crumb rubber posed
a health or environmental risk.
The group called for a moratorium on new fields after a laboratory
study it commissioned found that heated crumb rubber gives off vapors
containing at least four organic chemicals that can irritate eyes,
skin and lungs, and one of which has been linked to cancer.
On warm days, synthetic-turf fields using crumb rubber can reach
temperatures higher than 130, but it is not known how much of the
chemicals athletes are exposed to.
Alderman points to assessments in Sweden, Norway and Italy of the
compounds found in tires, which concluded that recycled tires should
not be used in synthetic turf, as additional reasons that no more
fields should be built until comprehensive research is done.
Doyle countered that numerous studies in the United States and abroad,
including one by FIFA, the international governing body of soccer,
have concluded that synthetic fields are likely to have little or no
impact on human health or the environment.
But he said his group would welcome impartial tests conducted on
fields, not in laboratories, to determine whether they give off toxic
vapors.
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