$28,800 to recycle an artificial turf football field
At today's Montgomery County Council T&E Committee meeting, the vendor for the artificial turf fields used in the county stated that their fields were recyclable! He said that recycling of the three artificial turf fields that have been installed at Montgomery County public schools wasn't included in the contracts, but could be added.
What the Council members didn't ask was how much that would cost. But the Piedmont Unified School District in California did ask.
According to Field Turf, the cost to recycle an artificial turf field is $.50 psf.
A football field is 57,600 square feet. That makes the cost to recycle an artificial turf field $28,800.
Hope the County Council will factor that cost into their calculations of the total cost of an artificial turf football field versus the total cost of a natural grass football field.
Thank you for finding out the cost. We wondered but the council did not ask and FieldTurf rep John McShane did not offer. The dumpsters full of AT rug at WJ beg the question: where did all that plastic turf go after Field Turf had already promised MCPS to recycle all their product ? Was it recycled, or landfilled (and if so what was the cost to Montgomery County of landfilling it?). IF not recycled- this reflect badly on Field Turf's commitment to recycling their product as stated.
ReplyDeleteFieldTurf's pride in recycling ONE field, out of thousands installed, backs up our research that this product has not typically been recycled . In fact in his last testimony (at the MCCPTA forum in October 2009) John McShane stated disposal was the customer's problem.
The soccerplex fields are not Field Turf and the manager does not know how they will be disposed of. How will private school fields be disposed of? Field Turf's assertion for county fields notwithstanding , our solid waste facilities WILL be swamped soon by acres of plastic and many hundreds of tons of tire waste they are not prepared for from private schools and the soccerplex. Much of this plastic turf may be tainted with lead pigments- unlike California where testing was required after lead was found in many manufacturer's fields, Maryland requires no testing for lead. The council should seriously look at imposing a special fee for testing and disposing of this special hazardous waste before it becomes the taxpayers problem fiscally and environmentally. If it contains lead it will need very special and potentially very expensive, disposal.