The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
The dangers that lie underneath synthetic fields
When a synthetic turf football field is installed it covers 1.32 acres; and for a soccer field it covers 1.76 acres; and is slightly larger for a lacrosse field.
Synthetic turf fields are made of plastic. The plastic grasslooking fibers are typically made of nylon, polypropylene or polyethylene, all differing types of plastic.
Underneath the acres of plastic are more layers of plastic and rubber, often including shock pads and drainage mats.
The Synthetic Turf Council, the industry’s main trade group, estimates that there are somewhere between 12,000 to 13,000 synthetic turf fields are in the United States, with some 1,200 to 1,500 new installations going in a year.
Do the people who recommend that synthetic turf fields be installed consider either the plastic epidemic or the heat increases from climate change? This piece will consider both.
First, the heat component of synthetic turf fields and what this means as today’s temperatures rise.
Synthetic turf can be 40 to 70 degrees hotter than surrounding air temperatures on warm sunny days
Stuart Gaffin, a past climate researcher at Columbia University, compared a synthetic turf field to a nearby grass field. He found the synthetic turf field ran 60 degrees hotter than the grass field on a sunny afternoon, easily reaching temperatures of 140 degrees or more. This is close to the temperatures recorded on black tar, beach or rooftops.
Since Graffin’s report, Environment and Human Health Inc. found that when the outside air is 75 degrees, it can be 120 on synthetic turf; when outside air is 91, the fields can be as hot as 161 degrees.
At the University of Missouri, a study done found artificial turf at that university hit 173 degrees on a 98-degree day while a nearby grass field hovered at 105 degrees.
The National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research reported that 51 high school football players have died from exertional heatstroke since 1995. College football players also continue to die from heat stroke.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that in the contiguous United States, the temperature was 2.6 degrees above average this year. This exceeds the record heat of the 1936 Dust Bowl summer.
The heat of synthetic turf fields is very serious in this time of climate change — but so are the acres of plastic that these synthetic turf fields contain at a time when we are drowning in plastics and microplastics.
Microplastics are tiny particles of plastic that break down from larger pieces and then make their way throughout the globe. Microplastics are present in our food, water and even our air. Most plastics can contribute to microplastics by physical and chemical degradation, such as being stepped on and exposed to constant sunlight. It would be impossible to say that plastic synthetic turf fields, which are played on all the time, do not add to the microplastics that are ubiquitous in our environment.
The plastic grass in synthetic turf fields is no longer just plastic. The plastic grass often has other toxic substances added to it such as flame retardants, antimicrobials and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are also found in the plastic grass. Some manufacturers integrate antimicrobials during the manufacturing process so that they become part of the molecular structure of the plastic grass.
After years of athletes playing on these plastic carpets and stirring up microplastics, eventually the fields wear out and have to be replaced. That happens anywhere from eight to 10 years.
Then what happens to all this plastic? Industry tells us these plastic carpets can be recycled —— but is that really what happens?
The Synthetic Turf Council reported that in 2020, 750 fields will be replaced annually. Because turf fields have infill inside the blades of plastic grass, it makes recycling almost impossible. The synthetic turf plastic carpets become yet another waste disposal challenge. Many of these plastic carpets get landfilled and many are simply rolled up and dumped somewhere.
Because used fields contain numerous toxics, they often end up leaching zinc, PFAS, microplastics and other compounds into the areas where they rolled up and left.
Amazingly, we watch towns and cities ban single use plastic bags and plastic straws, and yet at the same time they are approving acres and acres of plastic fields. How is there such a disconnect in the public’s thinking?