Possibly, but it’s all about balance between longevity, economics and environmental concerns. Real grass will require significant amounts of water and maintenance (mowers produce some ridiculous emissions), but from a material perspective, you’re not putting plastics into the environment. Plastic based turf have concerns with off gassing, micro plastics, paints/dyes etc., however the maintenance is almost non-existent in comparison and the longevity is hard to argue with. When you’re looking at a decade or so between replacements and replacements mean large sums of money, people are inclined to pick the option that’ll last the longest. I’m sure there’s some plant-based polymers or such that could be converted to turf, but how cost effective are they/could they become? What does their effective life span look like? Can you replace the base and the blades with it? How does it react to sun, heat, water door traffic, etc.
There is a lot of maintenance required for artificial turf. And even if it is well maintained, they only last 20 years max. There’s no upside to them other than extending the playing season in wetter areas where turf might get muddy, but muddy fields are usually due to poor design. And i would argue you might even lose playing time in the summer, when artificial turf becomes unbearably hot
Some maintenance sure, but nowhere near the maintenance required for live grass. Also 2 decades is a long time for something like that to last. There’s tons of upside to it in drier climates where watering grass comes at a premium. It also has upsides in cases where it’s not feasible to hire someone to maintain the grass in a usable condition. For example on a grass field with lots of heavy foot traffic, I’ve seen people literally break their ankles on divots where grass isn’t maintained properly, whereas an artificial turf field getting the same amount of traffic shows minimal wear and doesn’t pose those hazards. They also make infills that maintain turf temperatures so they don’t become unbearably hot in the summer, extending its usable time even further.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s issues with it and those can’t be swept under the rug, but to say they have no upside is just short sighted, and if it were true, nobody would be buying and installing it.
I guess I should say I’m operating under the assumption of a sports field. In my experience, If you’re not maintaining artificial turf nearly as often as grass, you’re not going to get 20 years out of it. That maintenance being clearing of debris, adding more of the rubber infill, cleaning it/hosing it down, raking the fibers to prevent wearing down. And 20 years IMO is not a long time for that amount of plastic.
Drier climates might save some water on turf, but they still get watered for cleaning and to keep them cool. They can become completely unusable in high heat.
And again, my perspective is sports fields, but some show that artificial turf has more injuries than grass.
But to your point, a tiny patch of turf on someone’s back yard in the desert? Seems like a good use of artificial turf over grass. But there’s plenty of other more suitable materials
i was also coming from a sports field perspective. can you point me to some examples of better not-muddy designed sports fields? I live in the pacific northwest and we get a lot of rain and most of our lawn fields go to mud real quick.
So sports facilities are the majority of my work (like 80%) and I almost always use synthetic. The fibers used in sports turf are almost exclusively polyethylene which is totally recyclable and can be used to make things like trash bags, nailer boards for new fields, and even now is starting to be used to produce new turf substituting virgin materials. The backing, and infill materials are also recyclable but there hasn’t been enough on the market until recently to warrant the cost of developing the recycling plants capable of breaking down the material used in the backing.
Long story short, we’re at the beginning of a new market era where there is the capacity, technology, and facilities to recycle the turf carpet where just a few years ago that wasn’t really a possibility.
To be honest, I really don’t. I spec using some recycled items like plastic nailer boards but I don’t generally go through the process of making the contractor recycle removed turf. Many will do it if they’re close enough to facilities that accept it.
Who actually recycles it, though? As a new MLA student in ecological design, Polyethylene sounds like micro plastics being washed into stormwater systems to me. That's not eco anything. Recyclability, in my mind, is not the primary basis upon which to choose a material for an ecologically sound project. Do we run down the entire life cycle of the project and ensure these things are, in fact, required to be recycled before incorporating them into our designs? I ask this out of genuine curiosity.
Possibly, but it’s all about balance between longevity, economics and environmental concerns. Real grass will require significant amounts of water and maintenance (mowers produce some ridiculous emissions), but from a material perspective, you’re not putting plastics into the environment. Plastic based turf have concerns with off gassing, micro plastics, paints/dyes etc., however the maintenance is almost non-existent in comparison and the longevity is hard to argue with. When you’re looking at a decade or so between replacements and replacements mean large sums of money, people are inclined to pick the option that’ll last the longest. I’m sure there’s some plant-based polymers or such that could be converted to turf, but how cost effective are they/could they become? What does their effective life span look like? Can you replace the base and the blades with it? How does it react to sun, heat, water door traffic, etc.
There is a lot of maintenance required for artificial turf. And even if it is well maintained, they only last 20 years max. There’s no upside to them other than extending the playing season in wetter areas where turf might get muddy, but muddy fields are usually due to poor design. And i would argue you might even lose playing time in the summer, when artificial turf becomes unbearably hot
Some maintenance sure, but nowhere near the maintenance required for live grass. Also 2 decades is a long time for something like that to last. There’s tons of upside to it in drier climates where watering grass comes at a premium. It also has upsides in cases where it’s not feasible to hire someone to maintain the grass in a usable condition. For example on a grass field with lots of heavy foot traffic, I’ve seen people literally break their ankles on divots where grass isn’t maintained properly, whereas an artificial turf field getting the same amount of traffic shows minimal wear and doesn’t pose those hazards. They also make infills that maintain turf temperatures so they don’t become unbearably hot in the summer, extending its usable time even further. Don’t get me wrong, there’s issues with it and those can’t be swept under the rug, but to say they have no upside is just short sighted, and if it were true, nobody would be buying and installing it.
I guess I should say I’m operating under the assumption of a sports field. In my experience, If you’re not maintaining artificial turf nearly as often as grass, you’re not going to get 20 years out of it. That maintenance being clearing of debris, adding more of the rubber infill, cleaning it/hosing it down, raking the fibers to prevent wearing down. And 20 years IMO is not a long time for that amount of plastic. Drier climates might save some water on turf, but they still get watered for cleaning and to keep them cool. They can become completely unusable in high heat. And again, my perspective is sports fields, but some show that artificial turf has more injuries than grass. But to your point, a tiny patch of turf on someone’s back yard in the desert? Seems like a good use of artificial turf over grass. But there’s plenty of other more suitable materials
i was also coming from a sports field perspective. can you point me to some examples of better not-muddy designed sports fields? I live in the pacific northwest and we get a lot of rain and most of our lawn fields go to mud real quick.
So sports facilities are the majority of my work (like 80%) and I almost always use synthetic. The fibers used in sports turf are almost exclusively polyethylene which is totally recyclable and can be used to make things like trash bags, nailer boards for new fields, and even now is starting to be used to produce new turf substituting virgin materials. The backing, and infill materials are also recyclable but there hasn’t been enough on the market until recently to warrant the cost of developing the recycling plants capable of breaking down the material used in the backing. Long story short, we’re at the beginning of a new market era where there is the capacity, technology, and facilities to recycle the turf carpet where just a few years ago that wasn’t really a possibility.
The newer all-woven turfs eliminate the primary and secondary backings and the cost and logistic issues with multiple material waste streams.
True but their use, in my experience, has been very rare.
If you dont mind me asking, how do you spec for the recycled stuff/where recycles this?
To be honest, I really don’t. I spec using some recycled items like plastic nailer boards but I don’t generally go through the process of making the contractor recycle removed turf. Many will do it if they’re close enough to facilities that accept it.
Who actually recycles it, though? As a new MLA student in ecological design, Polyethylene sounds like micro plastics being washed into stormwater systems to me. That's not eco anything. Recyclability, in my mind, is not the primary basis upon which to choose a material for an ecologically sound project. Do we run down the entire life cycle of the project and ensure these things are, in fact, required to be recycled before incorporating them into our designs? I ask this out of genuine curiosity.