<\/p>\n
New York City has 286 municipal synthetic-\u00adturf fields, with more under construction. In Inwood, the northernmost neighborhood in Manhattan, two fields were approved via Zoom meetings during the pandemic, and Massimo Strino, a local artist who makes kaleidoscopes, says he found out only when he saw signs announcing the work on one of his daily walks in Inwood Hill Park, along the Hudson River. He joined a campaign against the plan, gathering more than 4,300 signatures. \u201cI was canvassing every weekend,\u201d Strino says. \u201cYou can count on one hand, literally, the number of people who said they were in favor.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
But that doesn\u2019t include the group that pushed for one of those fields in the first place: Uptown Soccer, which offers free and low-cost lessons and games to 1,000 kids a year, mostly from underserved immigrant families. \u201cIt was turning an unused community space into a usable space,\u201d says David Sykes, the group\u2019s executive director. \u201cThat trumped the sort of abstract concerns about the environmental impacts. I\u2019m not an expert in artificial turf, but the parks department assured me that there was no risk of health effects.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nArtificial turf doesn\u2019t go away. \u201cYou\u2019re going to be paying to get rid of it. Somebody will have to take it to a dump, where it will sit for a thousand years.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n
Graham Peaslee, emeritus nuclear physicist studying PFAS concentrations, University of Notre Dame<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
New York City councilmember Christopher Marte disagrees. He has introduced a bill to ban new artificial turf from being installed in parks, and he hopes the proposal will be taken up by the Parks Committee this spring. Last session, the bill had 10 cosponsors\u2014that\u2019s a lot. Marte says he expects resistance from lobbyists, but there\u2019s precedent. The city of Boston banned artificial turf in 2022. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Upstate, in a Rochester suburb called Brighton, the school district included synthetic-\u00adturf baseball and softball diamonds in a wide-ranging February 2024 capital improvement proposition. The measure passed. In a public meeting in November 2025, the school board acknowledged the intent to use synthetic grass\u2014or, as concerned parents had it, \u201cto rip up a quarter \u00admillion square feet of this open space and replace it with artificial turf,\u201d says David Masur, executive director of the environmental group PennEnvironment, whose kids attend school in Brighton. Parents and community members mobilized against the plan, further angered when contractors also cut down a beloved 200-year-old tree. School superintendent Kevin McGowan says it\u2019s too late to change course. Masur has been working to oppose the plan nevertheless\u2014he says school boards are making consequential decisions about turf without sharing information or getting input, even though these fields can cost millions of dollars of taxpayer money.<\/p>\n
In short, the fights can get tense. On Martha\u2019s Vineyard, in Massachusetts, a meeting about plans to install an artificial field at a local high school had to be ended early amid verbal abuse. A staffer for the local board of health who voiced concern about PFAS in the turf quit the board after discovering bullet casings in her tote bag, she said, which she perceived as a death threat. After an eight-year fight, the board eventually banned artificial turf altogether.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nWhat happens next? Well, outdoor artificial turf lasts only eight to 12 years before it needs to be taken up and replaced. The Synthetic Turf Council says it\u2019s at least partially recyclable and cites a company called BestPLUS Plastic Lumber as a purveyor of products made from recycled turf. The company says one of its products, a liner called GreenBoard that artificial turf can be nailed into, is at least 40% recycled from fake grass. Joseph Sadlier, vice president and general manager of plastics recycling at BestPLUS, says the company recycles over 10 million pounds annually.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yet the material is piling up. In 2021, a Danish company called Re-Match announced plans to open a recycling plant in Pennsylvania and began amassing thousands of tons of used plastic turf in three locations. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2025.<\/p>\n
In Ithaca, university representatives told planning boards that it would be possible to recycle the old artificial turf they ripped out to make way for the Meinig Fieldhouse. That didn\u2019t happen. An anonymous local activist tracked the old rolls to a hauling company a half-hour\u2019s drive south of campus and shared pictures of them sitting on the lot, where they stayed for months. It\u2019s unclear what their ultimate fate will be.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
#fake #grass #bad #idea #Astroturf #wars<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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