You're a High School Athletic Director, out in Western Massachusetts, where you also serve as head coach for the school's varsity football and girls' field hockey teams. Your grassless playing fields are so old, worn, and hard, you secretly suspect they cover bedrock. The school's green groundskeeper has tried every conceivable type of fertilizer, kelp meal, green sand, humate, and compost, in an attempt to turn the playing fields into something soft and lush, but after all these years of eco-experimentation, they still look like hell.
Whenever some behemoth lineman tackles one of your boys, he might as well be slamming the player down on concrete. By the fourth quarter, even the youngest freshmen are ready for the nursing home. The last time your star receiver dove for a pass, he couldn't stand without the aid of crutches. The girls' field hockey team hasn't fared any better. Passes shoot across the field's glazed surface with the velocity of a slap shot. These days, the girls suit up like the Boston Bruins.
Finally, after countless trips to the Sisters of Mercy Hospital, you can't take it anymore. Hat in hand, you petition the School Board to install synthetic turf.
What Is It?
Synthetic turf has evolved since first introduced in 1965 in the Astrodome, under the trade name "Astroturf," where the Huston Astros played. Astroturf was never popular with the ballplayers, who found the surface too hard, and made balls bounce unpredictably. Successive incarnations of synthetic turf were designed to mimic the softness and ball handling characteristics of natural turf. The very latest generation, known as "infill" synthetic grass, exploits a combination of synthetic fiber woven into a mat with sand or rubber "infill" to simulate the look and feel of natural turf. It's markedly superior all earlier generation, both endorsed and widely used by prestigious sports organizations, ranging from the NCAA to FIFA.
Who Needs It?
High schools and university athletic directors, city parks and recreation officials, minor and major league team owners, international sports federations.
Benefits
Because infill synthetic turf is chock full of resilient materials, providing maximum impact attenuation, it enhances player safety and reduces the amount of injuries. In fact, the NCAA published the results of a study among schools nationwide comparing injury rates between natural and synthetic turf. During the 2003-04 academic year, the injury rate during practice was 4.4% on natural turf, and 3.5% on synthetic turf. Another 2005 study compared injury incidents of eight Texas high school football teams playing on infill synthetic surfaces and natural turf-grass surfaces. Although similarities in injury occurrence existed between infill synthetic turf and natural grass fields over a five-year period of competitive play, the seriousness and significance of the injuries were greater on turf-grass playing fields.
Moreover, tests that measure shoe-surface traction of synthetic turf surfaces show improved athletic performance on synthetic turf compared to natural turf-grass. Traction, rotation and slip resistance, surface abrasion and stability meet the high requirements of the most respected sports leagues and federations - plus you don't need 3" cletes.
If your playing fields do not enjoy a climate conducive for growing natural turf on a year-round basis, because you either bake in summer or get snowed in during winter, synthetic turf provides a more consistent playing surface. What's more, while periodic maintenance is necessary with synthetic turf, you don't need the constant maintenance natural turf requires. This is an important factor not only for professional sports, but also for expanding school districts, both acutely aware of cost-effectiveness.
Risks
Natural turf advocates argue that synthetic turf playing fields can become very hot during summer months and need to be sprayed down with water to cool them. Critics also note they require regular sanitizing to reduce the possibility of viral or bacterial infections transmitted by cut or bleeding players.
There's also the argument that natural turf is friendlier for the environment. Nature nuts claim natural playing fields bio-filter rainwater moving from the ground's surface to aquifer. They state, too, that grass-turf has a cooling effect on surrounding properties, reducing the energy use of air conditioning. What they often fail to mention is how fertilizers and pesticides associated with natural turf can run off into streams and rivers.
New York City purchases the largest amount of synthetic turf in the United States. To address consumer concerns about the potential hazards associated with the use of artificial turf fields, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene published a fact sheet on synthetic turf. In addition to citing the benefits of synthetic turf fields over natural grass fields, they also addressed concerns regarding chemicals detected in the rubber found in infill synthetic turf. New York's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene also recognized that while chemicals are detected in ground rubber, they were unlikely to pose any health risk, and the very same chemicals were ubiquitously found in any urban environment from alternative sources.
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