I read with interest a recent article in The Guardian reporting on artificial turf.

Entitled Why fake grass is far from green in ways you might not guess?, the story outlined a number of issues that relate to the installation, maintenance and longevity of artificial grass and also touches on the wider impact of these new trends of replacing natural grass lawns with artificial grass and gravels. 

In recent years we have seen a surge in the sale of these artificial carpets. They now come in all manner of colours and configurations and are being installed in many private and public areas. The key problem is they are promoted on a ‘maintenance free’ selling point. In recent years I feel their popularity has been partially driven by people needing to find extra space for parking their cars and becoming less interested in maintaining their lawns and gardens. 

It seems the interest in maintaining a nice garden has waned dramatically and we are now seeing front gardens turned into flat additional parking spaces. For example down the street I live on, 50% of the houses now have no front gardens or lawns.

This clearly has a negative effect on the surrounding environment in terms of attracting and providing a habitat for local wildlife.

Key quotes from The Guardian article that I find especially worrying are:- 

• “Two decades ago, most London gardens would have shrubs and grass. Now the lethal shroud of plastic grass is everywhere, a coal- and oil-derived product, which can’t be easily recycled, replacing natural vegetation.”
• “Artificial lawns get hotter than bitumen and concrete. Without a blade of grass, and no shading vegetation, they are furnaces, emitting an unpleasant smell of melting plastic.”
• “Artificial lawns turn out to be high maintenance after all. They need to be watered to cool them down. They need special cleaning products to get rid of smells and stains. You even have to vacuum them to get rid of leaves.”
• “The rubber granules are toxic, it’s hard to recycle, it destroys biodiversity and you can’t even sit in the garden when it’s hot."

As a ex-parks officer, I am only too aware of the issues we are now seeing with these trends. Losing valuable green space is not a good omen for the future. With climate change taking centre stage and the threat of increased global warming, the public need to be more aware of the consequences of reducing this valuable green space - and that includes losing domestic trees, gardens and lawns.

Trees, vegetation, and lawns function as an excellent natural thermoregulator. With their shade and the water vapor released by their leaves, they lower the temperature between 2 and 8ºC on sunny days. 

Trees and lawns absorb carbon dioxide, which is the main cause of global warming, by storing carbon while releasing oxygen. They clean the air acting as purifiers, absorbing nitrogen oxide, ammonia, sulphur dioxide and ozone and returning oxygen to the atmosphere.

Trees and grass have cooling effects caused by shading and transpiration, when water within the tree is released as water vapour through their leaves. Hard surfaces, typical of urbanised areas, are much hotter than areas of natural vegetation. Destroying vegetation changes how the land absorbs and releases energy, contributing to temperature rises. Recent research found that tree-covered areas in cities have a much lower land surface temperature compared with surrounding areas.

While researching this article I came across one local authority, Newcastle City Council, who are being targeted by Rachel Locke of Save Newcastle Wildlife, who has called for a total ban on the use of artificial turf on any public land in the city after seeing it used in summer events organised by the NE1 business improvement district company. 

She is quoted in the piece saying, "We are appalled to see the widespread use of artificial grass in public spaces around Newcastle. Plastic grass is bad news for the environment and should be banned. It has a huge carbon footprint and breaks down into tiny pieces that find their way into our water, food and air.

"Some artificial grass also contains toxic chemicals, which are harmful to humans and domestic pets.”

From my own experiences, replacing natural grass and gardens with totally artificial products is not the way forward. Creating a non-descript, non-natural landscape is a recipe for disaster.