Sustainability of Artificial Turf Fields : Comparative life cycle assessment of artificial and natural turf fields

Abstract: Soccer accounts for a third of the Swedish sports movement with 3 503 fields of both natural and artificial turf. The European Union will make a decision in 2021 on how to handle the issue of rubber performance infill. This infill can be found in artificial turf fields and are used for performance properties. The problem with this infill is the microplastics that spreads into the nature which is considered as toxic. Because of this the EU have decided to either ban or provide mandatory rules to reduce the spread of rubber performance infill. The north and the majority of Sweden’s climate is not adapted for play of soccer on natural turf according to FIFA, and EU want to ban or provide mandatory rules for artificial turfs. This action from the EU can perturb the entire Swedish sports movement since soccer accounts for a third of that movement. This study was therefore created to show if artificial turf fields are as bad for the environment as rumours has said compared with the natural turfs. To investigate this, a life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed regarding the global warming potential (GWP) and embodied water consumption for three different field types: an artificial turf field with recycled SBR, an artificial turf field with cork and a natural turf field. The result visualised that a natural turf field had the highest embodied water consumption and the highest impact on the GWP of a ten-year life cycle while the artificial turf field with recycled SBR had the least embodied water consumption and the least impact on the GWP. The findings of this LCA were that Sweden for the moment is dependent on artificial turf and the rubber performance infill, since the material properties are the best adapted to their climate. Therefore, a ban would be a risk for the Swedish sports movement. It was also revealed that natural turf fields in Sweden consumes at least 50 % municipal drinking water when irrigate. The high GWP impact came from the production of fertilisers (NPK). This report has shown how artificial turf and natural turf can work together in an industrial symbiosis by making the artificial turf field constructed to collect rainwater and use that water to irrigate the natural turf with.