The European Commission’s ban on microplastics as a substrate for artificial turf sports pitches, due to come into force at the end of 2023, raises a significant issue regarding the dismantling of facilities that are reaching the end of their useful life.
It is estimated that around 3,000 of these artificial turf pitches containing microplastics will need to be dismantled over the coming years, meaning a solution will have to be found for the thousands of tonnes of discarded materials.
Until a few years ago, these materials ended up in landfill or incinerators. It should also be borne in mind that many of these pitches (around 80 per cent) contain SBR rubber infill, which in turn comes from recycled tyres.
100 tonnes of microplastics per pitch
An artificial turf pitch measuring around 7,500 square metres can contain up to 100 tonnes of these polluting microplastics. It is therefore imperative to find ways to prevent these materials from being released into the environment.
Environmental regulations and the circular economy have shifted the focus, steering these materials towards recycling and reuse rather than landfill or incineration.
Companies such as the German firm Polytan, one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of sports surfaces, use recycled plastic to produce the fibres for its artificial turf. Meanwhile, the Spanish company GWC gives new life to discarded agricultural plastics, transforming them into raw materials for the manufacture of new products or for the creation of new sustainable infill for artificial turf pitches, such as Ecolastene.
Recycling and Reuse
Each artificial turf pitch that is dismantled contains, in addition to the aforementioned SBR rubber, tonnes of sand and plastic fibres that require appropriate treatment to prevent them from being released into the environment.
This requires machinery specially designed for this task, which has a threefold objective:
- To reduce CO2 emissions.
- To reduce the time taken to dismantle the pitch.
- To ensure 100 per cent of the removed materials are reused.
To dismantle the pitch, machines are used to remove the four-metre-wide rolls of turf, which speeds up the process. Furthermore, the machines travel over the artificial turf rolls themselves, thus preventing damage to the pitch’s elastic base.
This allows the pitch to be completely dismantled in a single day, speeding up the process of replacing the playing surface and preventing the facility from remaining out of use for too long.
The machines carry out a special treatment on the removed turf rolls, separating the turf fibres from the infill materials such as sand and rubber. These artificial turf rolls, once cleaned, can be reused, for example, in municipal green spaces.
Even if a turf roll is so damaged that it cannot be reused, it is still possible to recycle 100 per cent of its constituent materials, transforming them back into polymer, which can be used to manufacture a wide range of objects.
In any case, European projects such as LIFE T4C tackle this issue from a holistic perspective, removing polluting microplastics from the turf and replacing them with a recycled and recyclable infill larger than 5 mm in size, known as Ecolastene.
The system is complemented by a specially designed drainage and filtration system, which prevents the material from being released into the environment.