@GnomeDePlume
I think it’s a million times worst because unlike eating meat or wearing plastic it’s not normal yet. I’d like it if gardens continued to be little beloved pockets of nature in our homes.
But if you’d like some facts this is from a 2019 Guardian (where else) article and has plenty of statements you can dig deeper into (I could make that a pun but must go to work)
“Paul Hetherington, fundraising director for the charity Buglife, says artificial turf is far from an eco-friendly alternative to natural grass. “It blocks access to the soil beneath for burrowing insects, such as solitary bees, and the ground above for soil dwellers such as worms, which will be starved of food beneath it,” he says. “It provides food for absolutely no living creatures.”
This is a particular concern in view of the dramatic global decline in insect species. The UK is on course to miss its own targets for protecting its natural spaces, and has lost 97% of its wildflower meadows in a single generation.
It is not just wildlife that artificial turf affects. The Committee on Climate Change recommends rewilding a huge area of UK land and growing many more trees to help tackle global heating by storing carbon. Not only does fake grass have no climate benefits, but producing the plastic emits carbon and uses fossil fuels.
The common practice of replacing soil with sand to provide a more stable bed for the fake grass also releases even more CO2 stored in the earth, according to David Elliott, chief executive of tree-planting charity Trees for Cities.
There is also the matter of microplastics: the tiny particles of plastic that have made their way throughout the globe, and are present in our food, water and even the air. Madeleine Berg, project manager at the environmental charity Fidra, states that most plastics are likely to contribute to microplastics through physical and chemical degradation, such as being stepped on and exposed to constant sunlight. “You would be hard-pressed to say that you have created a product which doesn’t shed anything,” says Berg.
There are also growing concerns about the impact of the synthetic chemicals that are added to artificial grass on human health and the environment. The EU has been investigating specialist artificial turf used on sports fields for suspected carcinogens, and is considering banning intentionally added microplastics. While these are different products to those sold to home gardeners, Berg says artificial pitches are sometimes reused for landscaping.
Guy Barter, chief horticulturist at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), says there is a place for artificial turf as an alternative to paving slabs, gravel and particularly concrete, which is its own environmental nightmare. “Hard landscaping can be very expensive, and people fancy a bit of green in a small garden. We’ve even laid a bit [of artificial grass] ourselves.
“But I don’t think that for all but specialised purposes that it really compares with [real] grass. Not only does it not provide any of the environmental benefits of grass – like soaking up moisture, home for insects, feeding birds, self-sustaining – its life isn’t that long. It gets trampled on and quite soon looks poor. It can’t be relaid or reseeded; it has to be rolled up, lifted and sent to landfill.”