Environmental and Health Compatibility

People who choose artificial grass and synthetic turf for sport fields or gardens will pay much attention to the safe of artificial turf and synthetic grass products. They should, just as one Chinese saying said that “safety comes first”. Sport ground builders have more experience to choose the good quality fake grass, but for a garden owner, what can they do?

In fact, the most important factors that affect Environmental and Health Compatibility are the artificial grass yarn and backing materials. All the materials we choose have been tested strictly and all our artificial grass and synthetic turf proved safe.

The environmental compatibility of synthetic sports surfaces has been discussed since the early 80’s. Observations and studies by the Department of Water Protection for the State of Zürich lead to the ban and elimination of Lead, Mercury, Chromate and Cadmium in these systems. Determination of those heavy metal pollutants was established through the use of an elution in water test method. That basic idea was picked up by the Swiss Federal Committee „Environmental Compatibility of Elastic Synthetic grass Surfaces on Sports Grounds” (published as ESSM 105:1997) and then further spread through the DIN 18035-6 Standard. While the basic idea was sound, these efforts were largely based on armchair decisions and the risk level was overemphasized.

Thus, the requirement for DOC value (DOC = Diluted Organic Carbon) was set near the lowest threshold value which could be determined accurately (although the DOC value can be caused by harmless substances such as sugar) and the content of the heavy metal Zinc was highly restricted. In addition, the use of CO2 saturated water for the elution was without theoretical and practical foundation (“since today’s rain water is acid …”) which incorrectly resulted in very high Zinc levels in the elution results.

Finally, the relatively unknown testing procedure for nitrification inhibition was added. The orienting values for the assessment of environmental compatibility were set based on data provided by Germany. These values reflected the typical content range of substances in common synthetic surface products. The working premise was that with these values as the baseline, those products meeting these ranges through elution testing were thought to be environmentally compatible. Products exceeding these ranges were to require additional scrutiny. In the course of time, the “orienting values” became “limiting values” and finally “requirements” with alleged legal status (Waste Water Regulation in Switzerland; Soil Protection Regulation in Germany). The
metamorphosis of the environment documents occurred almost unnoticed. Fortunately, no great harm ensued since synthetic surfaces were in compliance with these requirements.

When artificial turf surfaces came into play the ESSM 105 and DIN 18035-6 environment documents were applied to artificial grass and synthetic turf surfaces once again in a process without scrutiny. This had negative consequences for surfaces filled with rubber granules. Here, the rubber granules are, different from synthetic grass surfaces, not covered by Polyurethane so much more zinc was found in the test water due to the larger exposed surface of the rubber granules thereby noticeably exceeding the orienting values. Based on this result and instead of reconsidering the matter, zinc was declared a pollutant despite its rating in water by the World Health Organization (WHO) as organoleptic only (i.e. effecting taste). Also not factored in was that the zinc release of artificial turf and synthetic grass pitches is much, much lower (actually non-comparable) than the level produced by car tires in traffic.

Finally, on the issue of the pH of the elution water, the argument was made that rain water loses its acidity as soon as it touches the surface. This was accepted only in Austria. Further research has found that the Zinc problem actually disappears with elution in pH neutral water.

This situation was recognized by the Swiss Ministry of Sports (BASPO) which setup a new committee to scrutinize the question of the environmental compatibility of sports facility surfacings. As a first step, the ESSM 105 regulation was withdrawn since it is regarded as professionally outdated and more current research is underway. Since 2006, a field-study has been ongoing to investigate the actual release of heavy metals and potential organic pollutants from various turf systems. To date the results show that there is no reason to ban black SBR rubber granules provided that these are from recycled car tires as the composition of car tires is well known and unlike technical rubber scrap, which cannot be controlled, no contamination through the addition of other dangerous substances is expected. The study is expected to be completed
by the end of 2007. The Swiss Ministry of Health (2006) has also published a statement denying a health risk caused by rubber granules in artificial turf surfaces (risk due to PAH)

As a public service, the ISSS (International Association for Sports Surface Sciences2) presented a Technical Symposium in October 2006, during which the results of studies conducted in various countries were presented in English for the first time. The presenters have graciously allowed this very informative research to be made available through the ISSS website3. This research took health as well as environmental risks into account. Some of the studies were on-going, however no risks were reported which required specific action – most notably in respect to the need for exclusion of certain materials such as SBR granules made of recycled car tires.

Part of the environmental compatibility problem is the question of the future disposal of artificial turf or fake grass surfaces. With well-known products there should be no general problem since they do not contain hazardous components in relevant quantities. However, in individual cases local conditions for disposal (combustion, landfill) must be checked. It is important to differentiate between the artificial turf carpet, the infill and the elastic layer since the infill is normally re-used and elastic layers may last through three or more synthetic turf carpets.