Marte Sponsors Bill to Ban Artificial Turf in City Parks
City Council member Christopher Marte (who represents Lower Manhattan) is sponsoring legislation that, if enacted, would ban the installation of artificial turf in all New York City parks. At a Thursday rally on the steps of City Hall, Mr. Marte said, “New Yorkers deserve real green spaces, not plastic fields filled with toxic chemicals. In our district, we’ve seen firsthand the impact of artificial turf. At Pier 42, synthetic grass floods when it rains, sending plastic crumbs and toxic waste into the East River. As East River Park is rebuilt, fields that were once natural grass are now being replaced with synthetic turf, despite growing evidence of its harm. This is happening across the city, and it’s unacceptable.”
He added, “artificial turf doesn’t just ruin the environment – it’s a public health crisis. It contains cancer-causing chemicals, raises field temperatures to dangerous levels, and contributes to micro-plastic pollution in our waterways. This bill will ensure that when New York City invests in green spaces, we’re actually protecting the environment, public health, and our communities.”
Responding to advocates for artificial turf, who argue that its reduced maintenance costs make it a superior alternative to natural grass, Mr. Marte said, “We know the Parks Department is understaffed, and we’re committed to working with them to secure funding through the budget for proper grass maintenance. This bill is the first step in that fight.”
Critics of artificial turf argue that it contains toxic chemicals; that it absorbs and radiates heat; and that it is difficult to recycle and contributes to waste in landfills and waterways.
Some community leaders have raised questions about the efficacy of the proposal. At Tuesday’s monthly meeting of Communist Board 1, Jeff Galloway recalled, “we have better experience in Battery Park City with how grass does not work for soccer or football and barely works for baseball. I mean, it just doesn’t work. And so we had an outcry in Battery Park City when those fields were grass, and strong demand that they get converted to artificial turf.”
CB1 member Andrew Zelter, a past president of Downtown Little League, said, “if the purpose of the space is recreational activity, it’s probably a multiple of ten times more utilization. Grass goes down when it rains and the fields get muddy. If they’re used while they’re muddy they can go offline for three or four weeks.”
Mr. Zelter advised, “try to pull the statistics from the Central Park field to see how many days they went down in this last summer. I think you’ll be surprised by the number of days they were not functional because it had been a heavy rain on Monday and they still weren’t open on Saturday and Sunday.”
CB1 chair Tammy Meltzer observed, “You don’t want artificial grass in picnic areas, but potentially in the middle of the baseball diamond itself, that might not be a bad thing.” She added that the determinative considerations would be cost and access.
State Assembly member Deborah Glick (who supports Mr. Marte’s bill, and chairs the Committee on Environmental Conservation in her house of the Albany legislature) said, “synthetic turf not only poses threats to our environment, it can also be harmful to our bodies. Turf that isn’t properly maintained and routinely sanitized can harbor bacteria, which can lead to infections when youngsters fall and scrape themselves. There are also concerns about chemical vapors which we inhale while playing on artificial turf.”
State Assembly member Grace Lee said, “our parks should be sanctuaries that connect us with nature, not synthetic surfaces that contribute to climate change and pose health hazards. I’ve personally seen the negative effects of artificial turf fields in Lower Manhattan, where runoff from fields in East River Park pollute our waterways and pose other serious environmental and health concerns.”
Last July, while acknowledging that studies of the impacts of artificial turf are inconclusive, the Children’s Environmental Health Center at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine recommended “against the installation of artificial turf playing surfaces and fields due to the uncertainties surrounding the safety of these products and the potential for dangerous heat and chemical exposures.”