Is it time to say goodbye to artificial grass?

[editor]

If you’re talking wild lawns, yes. But not people’s manicured back lawns. Seed it as a meadow and plant shrubs for the benefit of wildlife.

The planting of lawns and the fertiliser and water that then gets used on protecting them (particularly in the US) is generally identified as a bit of an environmental catastrophe.

You can spin it any way you like, but your average lawn is still going to be miles better for the environment than a garden that's been paved over with concrete. And then there's the increased risk of flooding...

Paving over gardens causes a problem for floodwater run-off because a traditional lawn allows water to soak into the soil. On hard surfaces, water builds up in roads and valleys and makes drains overflow.

Paved gardens increase risk of flooding in your neighbourhood

 

[kabbes]

You can spin it any way you like, but your average lawn is still going to be miles better for the environment than a garden that's been paved over with concrete. And then there's the increased risk of flooding...



Paved gardens increase risk of flooding in your neighbourhood

Paving is shit environmentally. I wasn’t posting in support of paving, I was pointing out that garden lawns are also shit environmentally.

For example:

Grass Lawns are an Ecological Catastrophe – ONE Only Natural Energy

At least paving slabs don’t kick out CO2!

Also, paving slabs are not the same as concreting, albeit that some paving slabs are made of concrete.

 

[maomao]

At least paving slabs don’t kick out CO2!

The manufacturing process does as does transporting them to where they're laid.

 

[editor]

Paving is shit environmentally. I wasn’t posting in support of paving, I was pointing out that garden lawns are also shit environmentally.

For example:

Grass Lawns are an Ecological Catastrophe – ONE Only Natural Energy

At least paving slabs don’t kick out CO2!

Also, paving slabs are not the same as concreting, albeit that some paving slabs are made of concrete.

That scattergun, random-fact-lobbing, hyperbolic article is all about' turfgrass' in the USA. I'm not convinced it has much relevance to the average back garden in the UK.

 

[kabbes]

That scattergun, random-fact-lobbing, hyperbolic article is all about' turfgrass' in the USA. I'm not convinced it has much relevance to the average back garden in the UK.

What about to football pitches, as per your OP?

 

[editor]

What about to football pitches, as per your OP?

What about them? The total amount of football pitches that are kept to such a high standard is infinitesimally small in the grand scheme of things.

 

[kabbes]

What about them? The total amount of football pitches that are kept to such a high standard is infinitesimally small in the grand scheme of things.

You were the one that brought them up!

The point is that replacing turf with artificial grass on a football pitch is not quite the environmental problem that you imply, because that football turf is probably not great for the environment in the first place.

 

[The39thStep]

Can't stand the stuff. Tacky . Normally put down by people who are too lazy to mow the lawn and then end having to take the hoover to it.

 

[editor]

You were the one that brought them up!

The point is that replacing turf with artificial grass on a football pitch is not quite the environmental problem that you imply, because that football turf is probably not great for the environment in the first place.

Neither my post, nor the article linked in the OP, were exclusively about highly maintained 'football turf,' which makes up such a microscopically small percentage of UK land that its environmental impact will be negligible. Most football pitches are in parks and require very little environmentally-damaging attention anyway - whereas the impact of paving over urban/suburban gardens is already well documented and increasingly rife.

 

[kabbes]

You know I wasn’t recommending paving anything, right?

 

[skyscraper101]

Needs to be looked at in context.

If its some private urban back garden with a couple of square meters of free space not worth the aggro of laying turf, and buying a mower for, then I'll give it a pass. I'll also forgive training grounds for football teams and other sports pitches like field hockey etc.

If however, its some big corporate space where they're simply doing grass on the cheap, or even worse, some style choice over actual grass, then it usually meets my disapproval.

 

[editor]

You know I wasn’t recommending paving anything, right?

No, you were making wildly inaccurate comparisons:

If you want to help nature, a lawn is a shit way to go about it, to be frank. Not much better than paving slabs.

 

[Celyn]

I'm trying to remember what a young Julian Assange did to his neighbour because he was annoyed that they had paved/concreted/whatever their garden. Can anyone remember? I don't know where my copy of his sort-of-autobiography is.

 

[Baronage-Phase]

There is an astroturf pitch where I work. It's a disaster.
When its wet it cant be used.
If there is frost it cant be used.
Likewise with snow.
If there are too many leaves falling on it in autumn it's unusable.

Rubbish and it cost a bomb.

 

[nogojones]

As I appear to be cast as "wildlife unfriendly", here's a photo of the post-apocalyptic wasteland that a few square metres of fake grass has produced:

View attachment 179762

Them trees and shrubs are clearly plastic as well

 

[UnderOpenSky]

As I appear to be cast as "wildlife unfriendly", here's a photo of the post-apocalyptic wasteland that a few square metres of fake grass has produced:

View attachment 179762

I'm a little bit jealous of your garden...

 

[Proper Tidy]

I know a family who have fake grass carpet in their living room. I find it upsetting.

 

[Steel Icarus]

i don't know how a soccer ball plays on artificial, maybe too fast? i say that because in baseball, if a grounder reached the outfield, it would then fly along like a golf ball.
and football players hated it because it was basically a sheet of plastic, layered over cement. the trend for both football and baseball has been completely back to natural grass.

petee AstroTurf for football is not good because firstly the bounce is too high (along the ground isn't that much different to a properly mowed pitch), and also if you fall on AstroTurf you get carpet burns, and you put sand on it for better grip so when you DO fall over you get carpet burns with sand in them

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I'm a little bit jealous of your garden...

Don't be - it's entirely made of plastic, and everything squeaks when the winds blows.

 

[a_chap]

Don't be - it's entirely made of plastic, and everything squeaks when the winds blows.

Yep. Here's this year's crop of plastic apples...

 

[Gaia]

Yes please is my answer. I mean, it's fine to cover up a little bit of concrete but whole lawns of the stuff? Ugh.

And it's shit for proper football too.


Turf it out: is it time to say goodbye to artificial grass?

I read about some bloke somewhere who'd replaced his Tarmacked drive with a mini-meadow. He was considering doing the same to his back garden. I'm with Editor, we are losing our native fauna at an alarming rate, particularly insects - and particularly butterflies, moths and, as we all know, bees and a decline in insects obviously has a knock-on effect on those creatures which eat them; just to go off on a slight tangent, my parents' garden used to be home to all three native species of woodpecker, then my father started going mental with the ant powder - consequence = no woodpeckers. We've not had any thrushes, either, since he started putting down slug pellets.

How the fuck can green spaces be "environmentally unfriendly"…?! What we need are more green spaces and, also, to allow wasteland to re-seed - and I love the national project to turn grass verges and motorway embankments into mini-meadows, it's fucking brilliant, that.

 

[Gaia]

Yep. Here's this year's crop of plastic apples...

They appear to be completely free of wasps; my father has 4 apple trees (well, those apple spires) and 2 plum trees and the wasps are in there almost before they're ripe! At least they won't touch the rhubarb. I LOVE rhubarb.

Oooh! We've got new emoji - must mean Lazy Llama's been an' gone and done the update! Nice one!

 

[Lazy Llama]

Oooh! We've got new emoji - must mean Lazy Llama's been an' gone and done the update! Nice one!

Not yet - these are actually real old icons we used to have way back in the early 2000s which I dug out earlier.