The environmental impacts of artificial turf worth considering before rolling it out in your backyard
The environmental impacts of artificial turf worth considering before rolling it out in your backyard
Artificial turf is an increasingly popular choice for suburban backyards, offering an evergreen surface that requires little maintenance. But that convenience comes with a big environmental price tag.
Artificial turf is an increasingly popular choice for suburban backyards, offering an evergreen surface that requires little maintenance. But that convenience comes with a big environmental price tag.
It also doesn't feel nice under foot. Clover or moss are the way to go in my opinion, if you just want green ground cover. Even better though is food producing plants
Seems to be very common where I live. People have pulled out existing gardens or grass and just replaced it with this stuff, even on the verge which they proceed to park on.
I mean if they are going to park on it, it's probably better than real grass. There really should be someway it's penalised for the neighbourhood effects
The alternatives, for those interested.
For those who don't want to maintain a natural lawn, Professor Howden suggests planting ground covers and shrubs, or growing a cottage garden.
And if native grass and shrubs won't work for your backyard, you could always lay down some bark or wood chip.
"You can just have bark chips like mulch over your earth, and that doesn't heat up as much as artificial turf and does keep the ground healthy," Assistant Professor Ting said.
We've just pulled up all of the grass in the front yard and replaced it with garden beds.
About to do the back yard.
No more mowing woooo!
Never did we consider fake grass, like really?