The Grass is Always Greener If It’s Made From Plastic
The Grass is Always Greener If It’s Made From Plastic
By News 4 New York Reporter Brian Thompson
POSTED: 7:56 pm EDT May 30, 2008
After a lifetime of yard work, my first real job was mowing lawns, I find myself incredulous that there may be something to fake, plastic grass. Otherwise known as artificial turf, it’s an alternative to the real stuff but now on your front lawn, not some high school football field.
Traveling to Nutley to see a couple of these so-called “fake” lawns, I have to admit that up close, it does look like the plastic it is.
But I called the head of the state Sierra Club on a hunch, and he confirmed: If you absolutely, positively have to have a lawn, the artificial stuff is better for the environment than the real. Why? Fake grass does not contain pesticides or herbicides, and perhaps most importantly, no fertilizer. It is lawn fertilizer that is now getting much of the blame for the seaweed that is choking the life out of Barnegat Bay and similar bodies of water, and for the algae blooms in the ocean that are literally creating dead zones where fish will not go.
True, plastic is a product of oil, one of the more toxic products that we are addicted to. But it’s a onetime use, the company I talked with offering a 10 year guarantee, and claiming its product will probably last longer depending on usage.
Moreover, because installation requires a lot of sand a lot of rainwater is absorbed instead of running off and flooding someone’s home downstream. A typical grass lawn is mostly impervious; watch the next time it rains and you’ll see rainwater running off into the street carrying those pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers with it, ending up in a lake, river, a bay or New York Harbor.
Who would have thought? Fake grass is good for the environment?
More information on this article can be found at www.wnbc.com/news/16441218/detail.html