The artificial turf industry is trying to shut down debate over
critical health and environmental concerns.
Grassroots Environmental Education has been sued by a major supplier of artificial turf fields to permanently block an educational webinar originally scheduled for January 23, 2025. The webinar, "The Trouble With Turf," was designed to help local school and government officials learn more about some of the serious issues surrounding artificial turf.
Now a court in Nashville will decide if the information which would have been conveyed by the speakers is sufficiently "false and misleading" to warrant a preemptive legal block and a financial penalty for Grassroots and the four speakers who were to participate.
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Here are the issues:
1. Do most artificial turf fields contain PFAS?
PFAS "forever" chemicals are widely used in the production of plastic, and are also found in pesticides, cleaning products, and crumb rubber – all things commonly found on artificial turf. PFAS are harmful at incredibly low levels; the EPA recently set a drinking water standard of four parts per trillion, but scientists are still evaluating whether even that level is really safe.
Independent testing of more than two dozen older artificial turf fields showed the presence of PFAS is every one of them. The source of the PFAS is unknown.
Polyfill claims that none of its products contain any "detectable" level of PFAS, but the company has only tested at parts-per-million. That's like a child telling his mother he has no germs on his hands because he can't see any. Without proper testing, no one can claim that their particular product is PFAS-free, and given the ubiquity of the chemicals, no one can claim that any turf field is not contaminated.
2. Are artificial turf fields made from plastic? Can they be recycled?
All artificial turf fields are made from plastic, full stop. As to whether or not they can be recycled, that depends on your definition of "can" and your definition of "recycled." Polyloom has partnered with Exxon/Mobil to try to recycle artificial turf fields using a new technique called pyrolosis, which melts the material at extremely high temperatures and reduces it to about 15% of its mass. The leftover material can then be used to make other things.
The technique is extremely energy-intensive, expensive, and shrouded in secrecy, so its difficult to say with certainty whether it works or not. We know that many old fields have ended up behind barbed wire fences in private landfills where presumably they continue to leach toxic chemicals into nearby water supplies.
3. Do artificial turf fields require the use of pesticides
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