Recycling: Separating Fact from Fiction

By Stephanie Boyd: Many of us have been concerned about the end-of-life plans for the proposed artificial turf field. The typical warranty for a field is 8 years. According to industry experts, the fields usually have to be replaced in 10 to 12 years depending on use and maintenance. The main reason that replacement is needed is grass degradation. Those little plastic blades wear out and break off.

Most artificial fields are made from a tufted carpet on a backing, with crumb rubber or other material mixed with sand used as infill. This layer is laid on top of a shockpad. In order to recycle the field, these layers need to be disassembled. "But the technology to recycle this complex product—separating the plastic grass and backing from the sand-and-rubber infill—still isn’t fully developed in the United States, or is deemed too expensive, according to one industry report and interviews with turf experts." Source https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/12/artificial-turf-fields-are-piling-no-recycling-fix/603874/

In Europe, fields are banned from being disposed of in landfills and therefore there is a bit more effort to get them recycled. In the US, since fields can be landfilled or burned in waste-to-energy plants the pressure to recycle these fields is less. Fields are, at times, illegally stock piled or cut into smaller pieces to be used in dog parks or other locations.

Vendors in the industry tell schools and athletic associations and parents that 'yes, the artificial turf field is recyclable'. At Mount Greylock, our school's landscape architect reassured the school committee that the field could be recycled in Pittsburgh at a recent committee meeting. He was referring to the company ReMatch, who claim to have a facility in Pittsburgh where they can recycle an artificial turf field but to-date no field has been recycled there.

In a recent conversation with a representative of TenCate, an artificial grass carpet producer, I learned that they have developed a woven grass carpet product (as opposed to tufted grass carpet) called IRONTURF that uses a different chemical treatment on the backing. This process presumably results in an easier to recycle product. I believe this is because the backing and the grass can be recycled as one, rather than requiring disassembly. The infill material needs to be vacuumed out, so its still a bit unclear how much of an improvement this product offers.

But:

• The new woven IRONTURF grass carpet that is claimed to be 100% recyclable has never been recycled (i.e. used as raw material in new grass carpet)

• TenCate has not yet even sold one of the new woven grass carpet systems.

• As far as I can tell there is no facility that can do this recycling. I asked the TenCate rep if we could return the carpet to their plant. He indicated that that might be possible in 10-15 years when the carpet was due for recycling but no assurances were made.

It costs 85 cents / square foot more than the traditional carpet, with a 10 year warrantee.

Since the MGRHS field is about 90,000 sq. ft., this recyclable grass carpet would cost an additional $77,000 at least. (This price does not include contractor's mark-up, transportation or the cost of recycling).

FIFA, Environmental Impact Study, 2017, (as reported in a earlier blog) notes that: "It is clear from the research that recycling of artificial football turf is not widespread. The majority of the manufacturers interviewed for this study claimed their products are ‘recyclable’, but none are taking significant steps to make sure this happens in practice. Technologies to remove, separate and clean the main components of the turf are still being perfected and at the moment the best processes are still ‘open-loop’. A full ‘closed-loop’ process is yet to be developed and this will certainly require more support from the turf manufactures to implement."

Its hard to know what conclusions to draw about all of this. Its difficult to get straight answers and that in itself makes me suspicious and wary.