Turf more dangerous than grass fields?

[Grant]

The NFL (American Football) is dealing with an issue where some players are getting injured on turf fields, where they use the artificial turf instead of real grass. I don't know what it's like for sports in your country, but I imagine those who use turf, does it cause more injuries than regular grass? What's more dangerous? What's better? Should sports leagues use grass over artificial turf? Or is it the other way around?

 

[McIrx]

About two decades ago, my township stadium used real grass on the football pitch. However, because the soil was somehow poor and not well managed, there were patches of dry land on the football pitch that caused harm to footballers. Fast forward to about a decade or so ago and the artificial turf was used to cover the football pitch.

Initially, it looked cool. I only realized how terrible it was when I worked for three years with the state football academy at the stadium. Without a doubt, artificial turf is terrible. Despite the fact that most of our players grew on the street where they play football barefooted on a dry land, they couldn't cope with artificial turf. In the afternoon, it gets so hot that it makes some of them dizzy. The state invested on floodlights and shifted our games to evening time. When the floodlights get switched on, you could literally hear the sound of the melting plastics. It was so bad that players started getting severely injured.

Lastly, artificial turf contributes immensely to plastic pollution in the environment. On several occasions, I do come across pieces of the plastics from the turf in the corner of my house. They stick to my boots and get transferred from one place to the other. These plastics breaks down to micro-plastics and nano-plastics which are dangerous to our health on the long run.

So, for me, its grass over artificial turf any day.

 

[Grant]

About two decades ago, my township stadium used real grass on the football pitch. However, because the soil was somehow poor and not well managed, there were patches of dry land on the football pitch that caused harm to footballers. Fast forward to about a decade or so ago and the artificial turf was used to cover the football pitch.

Initially, it looked cool. I only realized how terrible it was when I worked for three years with the state football academy at the stadium. Without a doubt, artificial turf is terrible. Despite the fact that most of our players grew on the street where they play football barefooted on a dry land, they couldn't cope with artificial turf. In the afternoon, it gets so hot that it makes some of them dizzy. The state invested on floodlights and shifted our games to evening time. When the floodlights get switched on, you could literally hear the sound of the melting plastics. It was so bad that players started getting severely injured.

Lastly, artificial turf contributes immensely to plastic pollution in the environment. On several occasions, I do come across pieces of the plastics from the turf in the corner of my house. They stick to my boots and get transferred from one place to the other. These plastics breaks down to micro-plastics and nano-plastics which are dangerous to our health on the long run.

So, for me, its grass over artificial turf any day.

Oh wow I didn't know all that about artificial turf. All that is another reason why we shouldn't use it. Back to grass we go.

 

[McIrx]

Oh wow I didn't know all that about artificial turf. All that is another reason why we shouldn't use it. Back to grass we go.

The experience I had may not be the same all around afterall the stuffs are of different quality. Maybe the one we have is of low quality compared to the ones in Europe; that's a possibility. However, no matter how it's twisted, the pollution tendencies and adverse environmental effect of artificial turfs on the immediate environment is certain and cannot be underestimated.