My soccer team usually plays on grass, but we play on artificial/synthetic turf about four times each season. Most of my teammates dislike artificial turf, which I understand. I like how it’s consistent (no mud or pot-holes in my penalty box)—but that’s coming from the privilege of a goalkeeper who doesn’t have to spend the whole game running!

That said, I care a lot more about invertebrate animals (insects and similar) than other considerations. In this YouTube video, Brian Tomasik uses a microscope camera to record just how abundant invertebrates are in (real) grass.

This made me curious: What is artificial turf like for invertebrates? Beyond the direct experience of invertebrates, I can imagine fewer invertebrates living in artificial turf, which could mean fewer animals potentially crushed underfoot during a game of soccer. This might (might!) mean that playing on artifical turf is morally preferable to playing on grass. Should somebody who cares about invertebrates play soccer on a grass pitch or an artificial turf pitch?

Overall, based on the sources I’ve referenced below, there doesn’t seem to be any systematic study of invertebrate abundance in artificial turf. There’s some general indication that invertebrate abundance is lower in artificial turf than in grass, but this hasn’t been empirically tested so it could be wrong. I think that’s a real oversight. Looks like I might have to take a microscope camera the next time I’m at an artificial pitch (tomorrow).

Murphy & Warner 2022, Health Impacts of Artificial Turf: Toxicity Studies, Challenges, and Future Directions, link

  • “Ecotoxicology studies in invertebrates exposed to crumb rubber have identified risks to organisms whose habitats have been contaminated by artificial turf.”
  • “General structure of artificial turf layers. On the surface, plastic fibers (1) are surrounded by infill, usually crumb rubber (2), at the base. These rest on top of additional layers of synthetic, engineered, and natural materials which may include a plastic carpet (3), an anti-weed barrier (4), a shock absorbing pad (5), crushed concrete (6), and finally natural soil (7).”
  • “The use of artificial turf fields as a replacement for natural turf has been increasingly promoted as a green solution to reduce water usage, maintenance costs, and the need for pesticides.”
  • “This paper investigates the potential contribution of artificial turf from sports fields to the microplastic and chemical pollution of the San Francisco Estuary during artificial turf’s use and maintenance life stage.”
  • “The study reveals that benzotriazoles, light stabilizers widely used in artificial turf production, and novel brominated flame retardants may leach from the polyethylene and polypropylene, the main polymers of artificial turf fiber, and exert endocrine-disruptive properties on aquatic organisms. However, the current experiments found in the literature only account for acute toxicity and demonstrate that the lowest observable effect for most organisms, except plants, occurs at concentrations higher than ambient ones.”
  • “natural grass fields require frequent maintenance, including watering, mowing, fertilizing, and periodic reseeding;”
  • “artificial turf fields need little maintenance: only occasional sanitation, raking, cleaning, and vacuuming are required;”
  • “artificial turf essentially requires no irrigation; artificial turf fields may need to be irrigated to cool and clean the playing surface on hot summer days.”

Bartlett & James 2011, Biological interactions within soil profiles engineered for sport and amenity use, The architecture and biology of soils: life in inner space, link

  • “The physical structure of these surfaces, the materials used for infill and the maintenance of the surface create unique environments that are essentially soil analogues in the context of sports surfaces. Biological interactions with these materials have barely been considered.”
  • “The internal environment and physical construction within these surfaces represents a unique habitat for many microorganisms; a complex biological system appears to develop, dominated by bacterial communities (A. McNitt, Pennsylvania, 2008, personal communications).”
  • “In third-generation constructions, where crumb rubber is also used as an infi ll material, the dimensions and complexity of the internal habitat of the playing surface are considerably expanded because of the high porosity of each rubber crumb. The rubber crumb potentially provides additional carbon substrates for appropriately adapted microorganisms.”
  • “The use of these playing surfaces is still relatively new and, as such, associated challenges are only just beginning to be addressed. Any questions regarding the scale of microbial activity within these surfaces remain unanswered.”

Lonzano & Ferguson 2021, Ecosystem services for compensation of artificial turf systems, link

  • “Currently, the Swedish Football Association roughly estimates that 70% of the artificial turf pitches uses SBR, 20% uses EPDM [Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer] or TPE [Thermoplastic Elastomer], and the remaining 10% uses organic infills. In the Netherlands, there are about 2000 synthetic turf pitches for football, which 90% have rubber crumb infill and 10% have another infill material. In Norway, about 1600 artificial turf fields have been established, and 85%-90% of the football pitches have crumb rubber infills.”
  • “Natural turf ecosystems can support abundant populations of earthworms which activity increases the amount of macropore space within the soil resulting in higher soil water infiltration rates and water retention capacity. Large populations of microflora and microfauna are supported by the soil-turfgrass ecosystem”
  • “Depending on the climate zone, the [natural] turfgrass ecosystem can support diverse communities of non-pest invertebrates including insects, mites, nematodes, annelids, gastropods, rove beetles, ground beetles, ants, spiders, earthworms, oribatid mites, springtails and others”

Informal/grey literature

  • This website from an artificial grass company seems to indicate that artificial grass is “inhospitable” to invertebrates.
  • This post on the entomology subreddit seems to suggest that artificial grass is “bad” for insects (presumably meaning fewer invertebrates per unit area, which is actually good for insects if you’re running all over the surface every week)
  • This photo on the landscaping subreddit reports on what appear to be tiny white bugs covering an artificial lawn. Likewise, in this thread on a parenting forum, one user reports that their artificial grass “actually has lots of budgs and insects living in it”.
  • In this thread on a grass forum (?), one user reports anecdotally that many people observe that “insect issues” are usually gone after artificial grass is installed. The user also points out that since artificial grass has much better drainage, there is less moisture for insects to live with.