County supervisors in Santa Clara, California are considering a proposed ban on synthetic turf on county-owned land following emerging concerns that this type of field can’t be meaningfully recycled, and, as such, poses an environmental danger to the area.
Parents and activists have come out guns blazing following the discovery that a synthetic turf field bound for a synthetic turf recycling facility in Pescadero ended up on a field in San Martin in a different county and approximately 75 miles away from the intended destination.
A group of parents and local activists who had been tracking news reports from across the country about giant rolls of synthetic turf found piling up in fields or illegally dumped, followed three of those trucks and witnessed them delivering their load in San Martin.
This is despite the recycling company having issued a chain of custody letter stating that “14 trucks were loaded from Saratoga HS and shipped to the TurfCycle facility” (in Pescadero).
According to the document, the old turf field would be “repurposed into the local community for general landscaping, batting cages, gym flooring, cross-fit, sport related ground coverings and erosion control.”
“They’re not truly recycled, and that’s a problem,” said Santa Clara County Supervisor Otto Lee, who proposed the ban earlier this year. “I think it’s important to make sure that we have a proper way of disposing of these, because, right now, we do have a lot of these fields all over our country and in our county as well. So, this is a major problem that we still need to contend with in the future.”
According to NBC Bay Area, neither TurfCycle USA nor the property owner responded to their inquiries.
Back to square one
Where synthetic turf recycling facilities are currently popping up all over Europe, repurposing used synthetic turf remains the only option available in the US.
An initiative announced by TenCate Grass, ExxonMobile and Cyclex in September 2022 has not materialised yet. The companies pledged to recycle end-of-life synthetic turf into new raw materials. It appears that, following the announcement, no steps were implemented to really process the old turf. According to various US-based media outlets, ExxonMobile has not finally decided yet on the site where it will conduct the recycling.
To add insult to injury, the company is now being accused of a decade-long greenwashing strategy that falsely promises recycling will address the global plastics pollution crisis. Authorities and a coalition of environmental groups are suing the largest single-use plastic producer for the money they have spent on keeping the beaches clean of plastic litter. This is estimated to be USD 1 billion per year.
In Europe, TenCate Grass is a stakeholder in GBN-AGR, a recycling company that has the capacity to process approximately 200 full-sized synthetic turf football fields per year. Since GNB-AGR commenced operation in 2019, it has processed close to 1,000 synthetic turf fields. The reclaimed stabilising sand, performance infill and carpet are sold to other industries for use in their production processes.