An artificial turf field on a summer day is hotter than grass and asphalt. Here’s what to know about the debate over grass vs ...

According to the Synthetic Turf Council, there are between 12,000 and 13,000 synthetic turf sports fields in the United States, with approximately 1,200 to 1,500 new installations each year.

Christina D. Mack, et al., "Higher Rates of Lower Extremity Injury on Synthetic Turf Compared With Natural Turf Among National Football League Athletes," 47 Am. J. of Sports Med. 189, 192 (2019).

The debate over whether to install turf over grass fields has become a referendum on sports, health, the environment and the ...

Artificial turf has also become increasingly popular, with over 265 million square feet of installed turf in the U.S. in 2020, according to the Synthetic Turf Council.

Artificial turf has come a long way since it was introduced on a grand stage to the sports world in 1966 at the Astrodome in Houston. Playing on ChemGrass, which became known as AstroTurf, was a ...

These leached chemicals are known to cause cell death in humans. Synthetic turf, like other artificial surfaces including asphalt and pavement, heats up by several degrees more than living lawns.

Synthetic artificial turf was first introduced in the 1960s as a way to replace costly and maintenance-heavy grass fields with an easy-to-maintain turf that mimics the “look and playability of ...

There are also multiple types of turf and grass in use, perhaps further complicating matters. The league doesn’t have a specific regulation on the type of surfaces teams lay down. As of now, 15 ...

Synthetic turf can accommodate about 3.5 times as much playing time as grass, according to county officials, and the switch would necessarily entail a diminished supply of spaces.

“Certainly, in terms of the drought, (synthetic turf) seems great, but there’s all of these downsides,” Smith said. Workers roll out artificial turf after digging up a lawn due to the ...