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Field Turf Responds to NBC Report on Safety of Artificial Turf.
As the country's leading manufacturer of synthetic turf fields, FieldTurf has always put the health and safety of our children and athletes first since rolling out our first field in 1994. FieldTurf worked closely with the city of Chicago, satisfying the health department and other areas of the administration on the safety and clear benefits of our fields. Plain and simple, the field installed at Lincoln Park is lead free and completely safe.
We are disheartened that after our fields have been validated by the findings of leading authorities, including the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, which concluded that "children are not at risk from exposure to lead in these fields," that self-interested groups continue to play up the 'health risk' card to satisfy their own agenda. We are further disheartened that despite clear and unequivocal guidance from the CPSC, the EPA, and the Center For Disease Control regarding proper testing standards for lead in artificial turf, that the wipe test, an indicator of whether lead is bio-available from the field surface, is still not being utilized as the primary and sole determinant of potential health risk.
Wipe Testing Explained
Most of the hysteria can be attributed to improper testing methods. The test that has been producing "high lead levels" is one that determines the chemical composition of the fiber. It does not assess bioavailability of potential health effects.
All scientific studies have shown that lead is non-bioavailable, meaning: the lead chromate is encapsulated - completely contained within the turf fiber - and cannot be released and absorbed by a living system.
Therefore, if lead on a field is to be ingested by humans, it must be found in dust on the field's surface. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the US Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC), the Center for Disease Control (CDC), and state health agencies across the country, in order to determine the amount of bio-available lead contained on any surface, a lead wipe test must be performed. Currently, wipe sampling is the method used by most risk assessors. Only the lead wipe test has American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards that have been uniformly adopted by all organizations. Only the lead wipe test can identify the chemical's presence where potentially dangerous to human health.
The wipe test has consistently shown that lead is not bioavailable from these fields - at any period during the entire lifecycle - and that the fields are indeed safe. Not surprisingly, the wipe tests performed registered lead levels well below those considered dangerous.
Lead Exposure from Artificial Turf Fields
The NBC report describes lead levels dramatically exceeding CPSC guidelines of 600 ppm for Lead in children's toys. Lead measurement for turf fields expressed in parts per million is simply a meaningless number because children who play on turf fields to not ingest it. And even so, using the most extreme case of percentage of lead chromate contained in turf, a 50 lb. child would have to eat 100 lbs. of synthetic turf in one 24 hr. period to reach elevated blood lead levels by US government standards.
Regarding Excessive Washing of Clothes and Body
Again, since lead wipe tests reveal very low levels of accessible lead found in dust on turf fields, excessive washing of hands and clothes need not exceed basic hygienic standards for children playing on a natural grass fields.
CPSC guidance states that young children should not ingest more than 15 micrograms of lead per day from consumer products. To put this into perspective, in order to reach this level, a child would have to wipe his fingers on the turf and put them in his mouth 750 times per day.
After evaulating numerous artificial turf fields of all ages, the CPSC issued the following report:
"The evaluation concludes that young children are not at risk from exposure to lead in these fields.
Independent Tests Prove Turf's Safety
Any potential risk to the health of our children remains our top priority. To that end, although FieldTurf and the Park's District have already completed testing, we are pleased to work with interested parties in jointly executing additional and independent testing of the field. Indeed, although the components of the field installed in Lincoln Park have already undergone testing and analysis, both FieldTurf and the Chicago Park District welcome any further retesting the installed field in cooperation with an independent testing lab. We remain completely transparent and have nothing to hide. All of the parties are absolutely confident that the testing results, which indicated no lead or health related concerns, will be confirmed once again.
The Truth About Lead in Synthetic Turf
Recent reports surrounding high levels of lead in artificial turf may, on the surface, sound alarming. However, when the sound bites are put to the test of science, the results are consistent. Simply put, when one reviews the extensive toxicology reports, testing, studies and supporting research, the science is there to prove the FieldTurf is safe.
Despite the fact that FT fields have been repeatedly proven safe, we are currently producing lead free fields to avoid any confusion among our customers.
FieldTurf Environmental Intelligence
All of our surfaces are developed, produced and installed with a concentration on sustainability and a commitment to protecting the environment. We call it Environmental Intelligence and we live by this principle in every way.
As part of the Tarkett group we have more than 100 years of surfacing experience and have always taken the initiative when it comes to the environment - long before 'being green" became popular. We continue our efforts to minimize our products' environmental impact over their entire lifespan.
Background
Synthetic turf is, and has always been safe. In over 40 years of EPA oversight and OSHA-regulated manufacturing, there is no scientific or medical evidence that synthetic turf poses any human health or environmental risk - from lead or from any other material used in our products.
While there were over 40,000 cases of elevated lead blood levels reported in children in 2006, there was not one case caused by synthetic turf and there has not been one single case reported since synthetic turf was introduced in the US marketplace over 40 years ago. In other regions of the US, when initial media stories warned of potential lead concerns extensive scientific studies were undertaken. These studies showed that children who played on an 'allegedly tainted' field had blood lead levels equal to or less than, those tested in other areas of the region who had not been exposed to synthetic turf fields.
In fact, a 10-year investigation of 763,216 childhood exposures to lead identified exactly 0 risks from artificial turf. In that same time span, the number of synthetic fields installed in the region increased over 1000%, while the blood lead levels in children tested fell from 23.22% to 1.52%.
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
FieldTurf applauded the recently released evaluation by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), which concludes that young children, as well as all athletes that use these fields, are not at risk from exposure to lead in synthetic turf fields.
"These findings are very important as they answer our critics definitively and offer yet another and hopefully conclusive validation of the safety of FieldTurf's products," stated FieldTurf Tarkett CEO Joe Fields. "We see our sports surfaces as part of the world's ecological system and make every effort to ensure that our activities respect the environment. All of our 2700 surfaces have been developed, produced and installed with a commitment to quality, playability and safety. The announcement by the CPSC validates our efforts. To that end, we hope to continue to work with the CPSC and other regulatory bodies, on an effort we have long had underway - to develop standards that the 'entire' synthetic turf industry must follow."
In a release issued on July 30th, the CPSC stated that there was no health risk to young children playing on synthetic fields and that parents should not be concerned about harmful levels of lead in artificial turf. FieldTurf Tarkett's emphasis on environmental innovation and testing procedures has been part of the company's culture since the very beginning and is a major reason why FieldTurf Tarkett continues to set the bar for product safety and performance throughout the industry.
FieldTurf officials noted that the Centers for Disease Control had earlier this year released a similar set of recommendations and findings, and other distinguished state departments of health have supported this safety profile.
To view the press release issued by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, click on the following link: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08348.html
Rubber Crumb
We were quite surprised to hear of the mention of rubber crumb as a potential concern on this NBC report. It stated correctly that the CPSC did not look at the safety of rubber crumb. This was not the focus of the CPSC.
Hundreds of studies have been completed to discover the truth about any potential risks from the rubber crumb used in artificial turf. Government health ministries and independent environmental bodies around the world have commissioned exhaustive research, studies and reports on the potential health and environmental impact of artificial turf.
Read what the experts say. For a listing of the hundreds of studies completed and a collection of the actual research and the factual conclusions, please visit www.fieldturf.com/sbrfactsand download the documents at the end of the page.
Many states have recently commissioned their own reviews and studies of crumb rubber in artificial turf. A recent New York Department of Health Report concluded that "...eleven different risk assessments applied various available concentrations of Chemicals of Potential Concern (COPCs) and none identified an increased risk for human health effects as a result of ingestion, dermal or inhalation exposure to crumb rubber.
A complete copy of the exhaustive 200 page report can be found here:
http://home2.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/eode/turf_report_05-08.pdf
"These little rubber pellets" that are being used in artificial turf are made from recycled car tires - tires that have been cryogenically frozen, shattered and with all non-rubber materials removed. Are pundits insinuating that car tires are unsafe? If yes, some 500 million of these tires wear out on our roads each year, scattering this material everywhere. Artificial turf's use of this material is microscopic, compared with other daily uses of crumb rubber. The State of California has recently passed two bills focused on the use of crumb rubber. The first 'requires' the DOT to use crumb rubber in set percentages of its asphalt paving. The second bill awards grants to cities, counties, districts and local government agencies for the funding of projects that use this material.
We're Even "Greener" Than We Look
FieldTurf starts out as recycled plastic pellets, transformed into lush, grasslike fibers. Mountains of worn out tires are recycled into clean, safe, cryogenic rubber crumbs, which are brushed in between these fibers, providing a unique and durable infill system. Each FieldTurf field saves over one million gallons of fresh water every year. It needs no herbicides, fungicides or pesticides - eliminating some of the eight billion pounds of these harmful chemicals used each year in natural grass fields.
Maintaining a FieldTurf field produces no pollutants from lawn mowers or other equipment normally used to look after playing fields. FieldTurf can survive over ten years of daily abuse from football, soccer, baseball, lacrosse, rugby, field hockey, gym class, band practice and every other kind of event that takes place on it. It's made to take a beating, performing its duty safely and consistently, in any weather - day after day, year after year.
Safety First
FieldTurf Tarkett has, at its core, a commitment to the health and safety of athletes and the environment. FieldTurf artificial turf is a product created solely to provide athletes of all ages a safe playing surface, regardless of heavy use or bad weather.
Since our first installation 15 years ago, there has never been a single incident reported regarding any sickness or injury, of any kind, anywhere in the world, as a result of exposure to, contact with, ingestion of, or inhalation of any of the materials used in our turf. |
