Recent EPA Report isn't an endorsement for Artificial Turf

Commentary, Stephanie Boyd

In July 2019, the EPA released a report they had been working on since 2016. The synthetic turf industry has been citing this report as support for the safety of artificial turf, but many questions remain unanswered.

“This report does not meet EPA’s own standards for scientific quality and should be withdrawn,” stated PEER Science Policy Director Kyla Bennett, a scientist and attorney formerly with EPA, noting that there are already more than 12,000 artificial turf fields in the U.S. “It is highly misleading for EPA to suggest that it has a valid reason to assert that tire crumb turf is safe.”

In July, EPA issued the first part of a “Synthetic Turf Tire Crumb Rubber Research Report: a characterization of only some constituents of waste tire rubber crumb used in artificial turf. Although this report was not a risk assessment, EPA offered a conclusion that exposure risks from toxic chemicals, such as lead, within the turf were low.

The PEER and Ecology Center complaint points out that not only was there was no support for this opinion, but the report had glaring errors and omissions, including, among other flaws:

Failing to examine more than half the chemicals associated with recycled tire crumb, and failing to assess cumulative exposures for synthetic turf field users that can occur through different exposure pathways for individual toxic substances and mixtures of toxic substances;

Using a flawed methodology for measuring lead levels that relied on composite sampling that mask lead hot spots, such as those found on recycled rubber playgrounds in Washington DC where testing showed lead levels of nearly 4,000 parts-per-million and more in some samples;

Excluding artificial grass blades and other components from analysis, testing fields at low temperatures, and ignoring particulates and other toxic contributors; and,Failing to consider that children may be uniquely vulnerable to and affected by even low levels of toxic substances.

For more information about the report https://www.peer.org/news/press-releases/epa-fumbles-artificial-turf-science.html