• Fri. Feb 14th, 2025

Preventative microplastics removal

ByGuy Oldenkotte

Mar 11, 2024

Environmental pollution from yarn wear is becoming an agenda item around the world. The biggest concern is the fields already installed. What can be done to prevent the issue being blown out of proportion?

The synthetic turf yarns we use today are by far superior to those produced a decade ago. However, it is the fields that are currently being used that will determine the future of synthetic turf. High degradation over the years or failure to prevent these particles from leaving the field perimeter might significantly affect the likelihood that synthetic turf fields are installed. Last year, scientists at the University of Barcelona raised the alarm by claiming that 15% of the mesoplastic and macroplastic content in open water is actually synthetic turf fibre particles. This suggests that these fibres may contribute significantly to plastic pollution. In the 417 water samples they collected between June 2014 and July 2021, they found up to 20,000 fibres a day flowing down through the river, and up to 213,200 fibres per km2 were found floating on the sea surface of nearshore areas. The level of fibre wear on a synthetic turf surface is currently being studied by the University of Osnabrück. Irrespective of the results, the use of risk management measures like kickboards will be inevitable if the industry wants to avoid authorities around the world shutting down the use of synthetic turf. “Depending on the type of field, the kind of yarn used, the Dtex, age of the field, usage intensity as well as the level of supervision to ensures the field is only entered by players wearing the correct footwear, we collect anywhere between a bucket to a wheelbarrow load of disintegrated yarns when we maintain a synthetic turf surface,” says John van Gennip of J&E Sports. The adoption of overlapping risk management measures will prevent these microplastic particles from leaving the field and becoming an environmental problem.

Not necessarily maintenance

It is claimed that fibre wear starts after six to eight years and becomes more intensive after 10 years of use. Altogether a field may lose up to 12% of its fibres in ten years. To establish how much maintenance equipment contributes to yarn wear, testing institute Ercat conducted a test two years ago whereby various samples were subjected to 110 cycles of either brushing or raking. Prior to the test, each sample was subjected to 100 Lisport-XL cycles without abrasion plates. “The fibre thickness and width were measured both prior to and after the test. While we didn’t really observe much damage, damage was still visible,” says Gerrit de Koe of the city of Amsterdam who commissioned the study. He concluded that brushes of 3mm or more, could damage a field too much, hence he decided to only rake fields, going forward.

Regular deep-cleaning

John van Gennip points out that it is essential to maintain healthy infill levels. “As long as the infill is there, and at the correct level to maintain the fibre in an upright position so it can flex when weight is added, yarn wear will be reduced to the minimum.” He advises to brush a field once a month but also to drag once a week. “We have developed our own machine for deep cleaning a surface, something we advise doing once a year. The machine tosses up the infill before it is taken over a 4mm sieve to remove the microplastics. Dust extraction removes even the finest microplastic particles before the cleaned infill is added back to the field.”

Taking ownership

The European Commission has granted the textile industry permission to self-regulate, based on their promise to install filters of 1.6 micron in washing machines to capture even the smallest yarn fragments. As the synthetic turf industry is pursuing a similar position, the point is increasingly being made to make the vacuum of synthetic turf fields mandatory. “This is the advice currently given to owners of synthetic turf landscaping products, for which the market is much larger than that for synthetic turf for sports but that lacks equipment to adequately clean the surface,” Jan-Willem Kraaijeveld of GKB Machines points out. Owners of synthetic turf sports fields have the option to use several machines. “There is a Top-Clean to remove leaves or cigarette butts that are usually lying on top of the synthetic turf grass blades, but if you want to remove even the smallest microplastic particles, you can use the Deep-Clean.” Like the machine J&E Sports has developed, the GKB Deep-Clean also sieves the infill and uses dust extraction to separate microplastic particles from third-generation synthetic turf fields. “It is a bit more time consuming but it is the best guarantee that the field will be free from any microplastic particles, and, as such, will be safe for the environment and for continued use.”

Guy Oldenkotte

Guy Oldenkotte is senior editor of sportsfields.info and has been covering the outdoor sportssurfaces market and industry since 2003

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