Neighbors just put in artificial grass as the front lawm\n. I must say it looks nice from across the street but I cannotbelieve it is
'environmental friendly'. No worms or little bugs. I did hear that some of this artificial grass has lead in it??

What do you think?
Margot

That's just crazy! I looked at the before and after pictures and it's funny how they only pretty much show bare dirt for before photos... of course it's going to look better than bare dirt!

I ownder if it's like sitting on plastic grass from a easter egg basket?

And I would rather let the water get into the soil and do it's thing naturally and not have ot worry about high trafic areas in my yard. How about after years of use and sun fade?

i just think it's a waste of resources... let's cover our yard in plastic... that will help the enviroment

Good grief! What next!

Oh, cripes! Your neighbors are adding to the impervious cover in your watershed, and that's NOT good! Forgive me for stating what many readers on this board already know, but impervious cover is any surface that rain cannot filter through, e.g., buildings ("rooftops," whether homes or commercial, industrial structures), roads, driveways, and artificial turf. What's the problem with impervious cover? Well, most watersheds need to maintain a high percentage of "pervious" cover, which will allow for the slow filtration of rainwater. The more impervious surfacing in a watershed, the more damage to streams. Water hitting concrete runs off at a greater speed than water hitting a vegetated area. More flooding, more streambank erosion, more pollutants into the streams, more cost to filter sediment and other runoff, higher water bills for everybody, taxpayer cost for stomwater/flood mitigation.

Actually, the artificial grass is NOT impervious water flows thru it to the ground. Our newspaper just had an article about it in today's paper. It is not a ungreen as you might think. Here in the south where we try in vain to grow cool season fescue which requires copious amounts of water to survive the summer heat and should be overseeded every fall along with fertilizer and mowing with small engines that put out more pollution per hour than a small car the artificial turf compares favorably. It isn't cheap though, at $8-12 per square foot covering even a small patch of yard can add up quickly.

If you were doing a landscaping design and didn't want to have a lot of grass but you wanted some it wouldn't be a bad alternative to real grass. I couldn't see covering a one third acre or larger yard with it though. I've seen them use it on "Ask This Old House" to cover the ground under a playset with a clean and durable surface.

quote:

Originally posted by Thyre:
Oh, cripes! Your neighbors are adding to the impervious cover in your watershed, and that's NOT good! Forgive me for stating what many readers on this board already know, but impervious cover is any surface that rain cannot filter through, e.g., buildings ("rooftops," whether homes or commercial, industrial structures), roads, driveways, and artificial turf. What's the problem with impervious cover? Well, most watersheds need to maintain a high percentage of "pervious" cover, which will allow for the slow filtration of rainwater. The more impervious surfacing in a watershed, the more damage to streams. Water hitting concrete runs off at a greater speed than water hitting a vegetated area. More flooding, more streambank erosion, more pollutants into the streams, more cost to filter sediment and other runoff, higher water bills for everybody, taxpayer cost for stomwater/flood mitigation.

Please do some research, it does allow for the slow filtration of rainwater.
I have a tiny patch of it, since it is no work, and in an area that cannot easily be mowed.
You like the real stuff, I love the fake stuff.
To each his own, but get real facts.

While it isn't something I'd want in my current yard my research on the web shows it to be a mixed bag. But overall the problems cited by Thyre aren't among them. Water passes through it and is filtered before it hits the ground. It doesn't promote run off any more than real grass. It can be a bit warmer than real grass leading to a heat island effect. Mowing produces a lot of pollution with small gas engines producing more pollution per hour than a car. Pesticide and herbicide run-off is non-existent with artificial turf. It will eventually be recycled or landfilled most likely off-setting any benefits from not landfilling yard waste. Composting yard waste while beneficial is done by a relatively small percentage of the population but towns are getting into collecting yard waste for composting rather than landfilling. It isn't maintenance free but it does require less work once installed than grass. It would be interesting to see if the CO2 grass takes in is greater than the CO2 it gives off when landfilled or composted. If it produces methane in a landfill (20+ times stronger than CO2 as a greenhouse gas) the benefits of grass would quickly diminish.

If all of our environmental problems were easy to solve they wouldn't be problems because we'd do it. There are trade offs on every choice we make. Unless you want to sit in a cold, dark house in the winter and a hot, dark house in the summer we'll need economical energy solutions to power our lives. Even if everyone drove a Prius we'd still need to import gas and oil.

Lawn grass just isn't a really environmentally friendly thing when you consider everything about it, like Sparky said.

But, why not plant some other groundcover rather than use something manufactured? Clover is wonderful, thymes, all sorts of green and growing things that don't need much maintenance at all can be planted instead of lawn grass.

My questions are not really environmental related, maybe more sentimental.

Does it stain the knees of your pants when kids play on it?

Is it itchy to roll in?

What about your neighbors dog pooh?

And lastly, in winter it will look REALLY strange in areas that don't get a lot of snow.

just ponderings

New things are interesting to me, but I think I will stick to my real grass. I don't water all the time, my grass turns brown in August in South Georgia and the turns green again in September when it rains more - then brown again in winter, then green again in Sring. I like the cycle, it is part of living here.

From what I understand, the reason it is considered to be green is that it stops people from using ridiculous amounts of water to keep their lawns green. And because it is somewhat porous, it allows water to flow through to the ground. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I guess I'd have to see it in action.

artificial turf saves on energy = no mower, maybe no leaf blower. it also saves water and lessens the use of fertilizer chemicals, but what is the energy load for manufacturing it?
it's not for me, I like the cooling effect of natural vegitation, but it might be fun to run a sprinkler on it to confuse the neighbors

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