New research project verifies safe artificial turf pitches
The new artificial turf pitches at Bergavik sports ground in Kalmar (Sweden's south-east coast) are laid out and managed according to the Swedish Football Association's recommendations for the safe layout of artificial turf pitches. The pitch is the subject of a research study in which microplastics are systematically and objectively measured to verify those measurements which indicate very small amounts of microplastics in stormwater during safe management.
Together with the Swedish Football Association, Ragn-Sells Tyre Recycling, Ecoloop plus Luleå University of Technology and Örebro University which quality review, Kalmar municipality, with the new artificial turf pitches at Bergavik sports ground, is conducting a research project with the aim of laying out a safe artificial turf pitch.
- Kalmar is a football municipality with elite teams for both women and men. At the same time, we are a municipality which cares about the environment - and above all water - and aims to become Sweden's best water municipality. We care about the Baltic and our watercourses, and so releasing microplastics does not work. When we were to build the new Bergavik sports ground, we felt we needed to do something to minimise any releases from the artificial turf pitch’, says Sara Gripstrand, administrator with Kalmar municipality.
Ragn-Sells Tyre Recycling recovers scrap tyres which, among other things, become rubber granulate for all-weather pitches. With the recommendations of the Swedish Football Association and the European Chemicals Agency as a basis, advice has been developed for safe use.
- We want to contribute to the safe use of our material. In Kalmar municipality we have found a partner which wishes to build according to the instructions we and the Swedish Football Association have. We will carry out various measurements intended to show that if a pitch is built and managed in the right way, the dissemination of microplastics and other chemical substances in water is minimal’, says Sara Stiernström, business developer at Ragn-Sells Tyre Recycling.
Advanced water and purification system
The new artificial turf pitch at Bergavik sports ground has been established as a closed system to minimise any releases. A bentonite carpet lies under it.
- We have taken all the steps we can in the design to minimise releases and are doing everything possible to ensure that as little granulate as possible gets out into the natural environment. What we think will make a big difference is that we made the pitch extra wide to facilitate snow removal. That means that we can put the snow on the pitch so that the granulate never leaves the artificial turf surface’, says Sara Gripstrand.
The design around the pitch has an advanced water and purification system. To investigate how microplastics are spread from an optimally laid-out artificial turf pitch, the services of Ecoloop, which runs development projects linked to society's resource flows, have been retained.
- This has been conducted as a research project in which we developed different ways of measuring the spread of microplastics where we identify the number and quantity. Most figures available on the spread of microplastics from artificial turf pitches are assumptions or single measurements which have then been extrapolated. In this project, we measure the spread via all possible distribution paths to map how the spread can really look. It differs greatly in scientific terms from assumptions, with qualified measurements being carried out over time, something we now do in an objective manner’, ‘says Fredrick Regnell at Ecoloop, project manager of the research project.
In the closed water system around the pitch, all water is taken to be in different collection wells which are fitted with granulate traps.
- We separate the water that goes through the pitch and the surface water so that it goes to different wells. In the pipes there are flow meters for the water and sampling wells where we can measure the spread of microplastics via drainage and via surface water. In the respective well for the drainage and surface water there is also a granulate filter which the water runs through and we can see how effective they are because we take samples in a further collecting well after the filters. As the final stop, the water ends up in a stormwater pond in which we took reference values before the pitch was laid out and where we can follow whether the addition of microplastics is significant or slight’, says Fredrick Regnell.
Important for Swedish football
The project also investigates the cause of dissemination where the two main causes are games and operational measures of various kinds.
- During the project, we will examine how much accompanies the players out from the pitch and we do this by brushing a number of teams and seeing what it looks like. The aim is to chart all the ways in which the granulate can leave the pitch’, says Sara Gripstrand.
Bergavik sports ground was opened in October and the measurements began at that time. The research project will continue throughout next year and an initial preliminary result of what the measurements show is expected to be presented during mid-2019.
- Everyone says that so much microplastic from artificial turf pitches disappears, but through this project we get precise figures as to how this really looks. Artificial turf pitches are extremely important to Swedish football because they extend the playing season. That is why it is so clearly very important that they should be safe and not harm either players or the environment’, says Ronni Lundqvist, pitch establishment manager at the Swedish Football Association.