Disposal costs are the most ignored aspect of budgeting an artificial turf project and should include the cost of 'special waste'.
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Hi, Phil Safer, yet again. You know, one of the most ignored aspects of budgeting an artificial turf project is the disposal cost of 'special waste', when the turf has to be replaced. Sort of a dirty little secret. The fact is; if you don’t choose environmentally safe materials, you could be burdening your successors with hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional unfunded special handling cost – costs that are rising faster than college tuition!
Every artificial turf field will eventually require replacement in 10 to 20 years. Each one of these full-sized fields contains approximately 225,000 lbs of recycled-tire rubber; 25,000 lbs of synthetic grass filament fibers, which contain undetermined levels of heavy metals; and 15,000 lbs of urethane harboring coating. In addition, a majority of the fields contain more than 500,000 lbs of sand containing silica, which may also contain fungi and mold and, unfortunately, cannot be separated from the rubber.
Many states define these products (or are likely to in the near future) as ‘special waste’ or as hazardous waste, which requires special handling. For example, Connecticut no longer permits the landfilling of waste tire-rubber. Brad Park, of the Rutgers University School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, warns that
“towns need to be aware that the fields are not permanent and disposing of them could potentially be a financial and environmental headache in the future”.
However, the potential size of the financial part of this headache has not been emphasized. When a removed turf requires special handling and disposal sites, as almost all turf of conventional design will require, the cost, including OSHA and EPA compliant removal, transportation and special hazards disposal fees, will likely exceed six figures, in today’s dollars. In many cases the disposal costs and fees, alone, will exceed that amount, by a significant margin.
This makes a consideration of the ecological effects, which affect the eventual disposal costs of all the components of a proposed artificial turf installation, an important determination of the financial viability of a project.
