@mcps @mocoboe Your artificial turf no longer has to go to VA landfill, it can now be used as MooLoo.

THIS WEEK’S #1 CLIMATE STORY: You’re in for an unusual climate change story. Researchers in Germany have determined cows can be trained to use an astroturf area called a “MooLoo” to relieve themselves, according to research published this week in Current Biology. When cows pee outdoors, their urine breaks down in the soil into nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. Indoors, cow urine mixes with feces and produces excess amounts of ammonia. Using this “MooLoo,” the urine can then be collected and disposed of with reduced impacts, including potentially by being used to make fertilizer. The study was mostly about determining whether cows can be potty trained, and so did not estimate the climate potential of the cow urinals...

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-energy/2021/09/16/the-rocky-road-to-reconciliation-797638

Artificial Turf’s Big Lie: Old Fields Not Recycled

No Recycling Facilities, So Tons of Plastic Carpet Dumped

Washington, DC — Artificial turf fields have been marketed as an environmentally responsible alternative to grass fields, providing a solution for a nasty solid waste problem by reusing old tires that are later recycled after removal. But this greenwashing is all a hoax, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Since there are no U.S. facilities for recycling, the plastic carpets and rubber crumb infill are often dumped or sent back to landfills in a form that is even more environmentally problematic.

There are currently an estimated 13,000 artificial turf fields in the U.S., a number that is growing by more than 1,000 each year. A synthetic field usually covers about 80,000 square feet and contains roughly 400,000 pounds of infill, consisting of shredded tires or other material, and 40,000 pounds of carpet. An artificial turf field will last eight-to-10 years, with most warranties running for only eight years. At that point, the turf is ripped out at which point new difficulties arise.

An 80,000 square-ft. sports field fills between fifteen and twenty 30-yard dumpsters. That volume would cost roughly $30,000 to $60,000 to landfill. To avoid that cost, vendors routinely advise municipalities that there are recycling facilities in the U.S.; specifically, they point to a company called Re-Match with a facility in Pennsylvania. One typical pitch claims –

“By partnering with Re-Match Turf Recycling, we will take the necessary steps to ensure that the synthetic carpet is recycled and does not end up in a landfill.”

Despite these claims, the Re-Match facility does not exist. An email from the CEO of Re-Match says, “there is no synthetic turf recycling plant in America yet.”..

https://www.peer.org/artificial-turfs-big-lie-old-fields-not-recycled/

Bill Filed Today to Prohibit Ground Up Tires from Being Used as Artificial Turf #crumbrubber #artificialturf

Ground up tires spilling out of RMHS
 artificial turf.

Maryland House Bill 1032 Summary:

Prohibiting the Secretary of the Environment from issuing a permit to install, materially alter, or materially extend incinerators; prohibiting a person that stores scrap tires from returning the scrap tires to the marketplace for use as artificial turf; prohibiting a person from incinerating tires; specifying the authority of a political subdivision to regulate refuse disposal systems and solid waste; etc.

http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/hb1032?ys=2020rs

Board of Ed. Finds $1.3 Million +/- for Another Artificial Turf Football Field #InTheMoney #Cash #NoMoneyforCleanWater

Overcrowded classrooms? School building in need of repairs? Lead in the school's water?  

Those aren't issues that the Board of Education is concerned about.  Instead, the Board of Education is busy using education budget funding to pay for more new artificial turf football fields.  Here's another one going in at Kennedy High School.  The plastic football field is being added along with an addition to the school.

From the Planning Board Mandatory Referral memo linked below we learn that this project includes:

Replacement of the existing natural grass stadium field with an artificial turf.

https://montgomeryplanningboard.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/A_Mandatory-Referral-MR2020010-JFK-HS-Staff-Report-FINAL.pdf

Shipping WJHS Plastic Football Field to Malaysia, 120 Tons of Crumb Rubber will Not be Recycled. #PlasticPollution #Landfill #UsedTires

Jan. 11, 2020, WJHS failed artificial turf field.

The Montgomery County Board of Education has announced their plan for the used plastic football field at Walter Johnson High School.  The 20 tons of green plastic grass will be rolled up and sent to Malaysia and the 120 tons of ground up tires used as infill will not be recycled.  

That would mean that the 120 tons of ground up tires is going to the County landfill in Southern Virginia.  There the 120 tons of WJHS crumb rubber will join the 100+ tons of crumb rubber and plastic football field from Richard Montgomery High School where those football fields will reside for the next 1,000+ years. 

According to their announcement, the Board of Education has contracted with Target Technologies International, Inc.  Target Technologies was featured in the recent FairWarning article Fields of Waste: Artificial Turf, Touted as Recycling Fix for Millions of Scrap Tires, Becomes Mounting Disposal Mess 

At this link Target Technologies explains their plan for used plastic football fields.  Target Technologies makes clear they are only recycling the plastic backing and green grass fibers.  They do not list any process for recycling the 120 tons of ground up tires used on each plastic football field. In fact, the Board of Education does not have a plan for recycling the 120 tons of ground up tires from the WJHS plastic football field in their removal plan.   

Target Technologies states that they partner with Poly-Pacific Inc.

Here is the Poly-Pacific Inc. warehouse in Malaysia:

This excerpt from the recent FairWarning article details the results of their investigation into the recycling that takes place in the Poly-Pacific location in Malaysia:

...FieldTurf once advertised a “take back” program where its customers can send fields back to the company at end-of-life so they can be recycled into coasters, park benches, garbage cans, shirts, school bags and new infill.

The program slideshow says nothing about sending the used turf over 8,000 miles away to Malaysia.  

This was the case for three fields that were removed from San Francisco over the last four years. City records show that a company called Target Technologies International, based in British Columbia, Canada, shipped the artificial grass to a recycling plant in Malaysia, where it was reportedly processed into new products. According to its website, Target Technologies says it recycles turf through an environmentally sound process and its owner boasted in 2017 that his is the “only company that recycles 100 percent of the synthetic turf” into post-consumer products.

San Francisco officials received three “certificate of compliance” letters signed by Target Technologies’ owner, John Giraud, guaranteeing that the turf from each field was recycled. 

“The Recreation and Park Department has been looking for all opportunities to recycle the material,” a San Francisco communications officer said in an email. “This was the only option at this time that we were able to find.”

But the communications officer did not answer a specific question from FairWarning about whether anyone from the city had ever toured the Malaysian plant. The official also didn’t say if anyone from San Francisco had ever examined the post-consumer products that Target Technologies claims to produce.

Giraud refused to respond to multiple phone calls and an email. FairWarning was unable to reach Thomas Lam of Poly-Pacific Inc., Target Technologies’ partner in Malaysia...

 https://www.fairwarning.org/2019/12/fields-of-waste-artificial-turf-mess/

'Running out of room': How old turf fields raise potential environmental, health concerns

As fields are replaced, billions of pounds of rubber and synthetic fiber are piling up because the U.S. has no plan for disposing of this product.

Candy Woodall, York Daily Record
Updated 9:13 a.m. EST Nov. 18, 2019

The hulking wall of rubber was first discovered by a borough maintenance crew.

About 6,000 rolled pieces were neatly stacked about 10 feet high, covering more than an acre of private land, according to the mayor of Cleona, Pennsylvania.

The green blades of artificial grass peeking through the coiled logs offered the first clue.

“This is what it looks like when someone gets rid of a dozen turf fields and there’s nowhere to send them,” said Mayor Larry Minnich.

A York Daily Record/York Sunday News investigation has found an unregulated industry that is growing exponentially and dumping several hundred old athletic fields across the U.S. every year.

Artificial turf and the projected mountains of waste...

https://www.ydr.com/in-depth/news/2019/11/18/old-artificial-turf-fields-pose-huge-waste-problem-environmental-concerns-across-nation/2314353001/

Bret Harte Filed Suit Against FieldTurf for Failed Football Field. Field Replaced. Same Type Field as Walter Johnson HS @mcps

This high school had the same type of plastic football field as is currently in use at Walter Johnson High School.  The WJHS plastic field has been deteriorating for years due to the defective plastic grass blades.  MCPS and the Board of Education have ignored the failure of this field and continued to keep in open, putting the safety of children at risk every day.

2016: 

High school calls foul on its football field; sues FieldTurf

http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2016/03/just-in-high-school-calls-foul-on-its.html

2017:
Bret Harte gets new turf to defend   
 http://www.calaverasenterprise.com/sports/article_c0c8249c-57a2-11e7-bc6e-6bc4f5561323.html 

FieldTurf Says Removal of RMHS Artificial Turf Involved Bad Actors, Omits They Guaranteed RMHS Field would be Recycled and Not End Up in Landfill

On Friday, March 1, 2019, the Maryland House Environmental and Transportation Committee held a hearing on House Bill 1142.  HB 1142 would seek to regulate the disposal of artificial turf.

As part of the public hearing, various people spoke about the disposal of the Richard Montgomery High School artificial turf in the summer of 2018.  The disposal of that plastic football field was documented here on the Parents' Coalition blog.  One of our members happened to see the plastic field being rolled up and loaded on to an open tractor trailer.  As the plastic and crumb rubber was driven away, crumb rubber was spilling out all over the ground and road. 

We documented the removal of the RMHS field and made the pictures public. 
Some of our pictures were used in support of House Bill 1142.

After members of the public spoke in support of the bill those that opposed the bill spoke.  One of the speakers opposing the bill was Zach Franz representing FieldTurf (video of statement below).  Mr. Franz referenced the earlier public comments about the disposal of the Richard Montgomery High School artificial turf field by saying, "some of the earlier reference bad actors that could be a subcontractor that was hired by a field owner to dispose of a field improperly."

Mr. Franz omitted that when the first FieldTurf (no bid) artificial turf fields were being installed on Montgomery County Public School fields the issue of disposal of these fields was part of the public debate.  Disposal of these fields was the topic of discussion in public meetings at the Montgomery County Council.

As a result of those discussions, FieldTurf issued the December 2009 letter shown below guaranteeing that the fields they installed in MCPS would be,

"100% recycled after its useful life is finished and will also guarantee that the field does not end up in a landfill. " 

So when the Richard Montgomery High School FieldTurf artificial turf field was removed and dumped by a river in Baltimore County and sent to a landfill in Virginia, who was the "bad actor" in that situation?

2010 Artificial Turf Purcha... by on Scribd

Bill to Regulate Disposal of Artificial Turf #HB1142

2019 Maryland Bill to Regul... by on Scribd

http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2019RS/bills/hb/hb1142f.pdf