A closer look at non-filled developments

12 Mins Read

May 12, 2023

The ‘non-filled’ synthetic turf debate is increasingly becoming cluttered, making it more difficult for both the informed as well as unsuspecting investors and emphatic followers of these developments to separate the wheat from the chaff. Sportsfields.info closely monitors all developments and consolidates all knowledge it has collected over the past year.

By: Guy Oldenkotte

The non-filled synthetic turf developments stem from the expectation that the European Commission (EC) will eventually ban the sale of polymeric infills such as SBR, TPE or EPDM. Earlier this week, it became clear that this will likely become reality in July this year.

The development of non-filled synthetic turf is also a response to the demand by the market for synthetic turf football surfaces that require as little maintenance as possible. Irrespective of the natural or polymeric infill used in long-pile synthetic turf, the regular revitalisation of this performance infill seems to place an undesirable burden on the financial budget or staff contingent of most municipalities.

However, this so-called push and pull effect has some side effects. The most important of these is the question of which standard must be met and how this should be tested. In 2021, we published our first article on these developments, which you can find here. This first of at least two articles looks at developments in terms of the system. The developments in terms of research and testing will be discussed in a separate article.

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