Synthetic turf

Synthetic turf is composed of a mat of synthetic grass into which has generally been added a ballast bed of sand covered with a layer of loose granulate.

Synthetic turf is gaining ground

Tyre granulate is in the process of revolutionising football pitches: “new generation” surfaces now make it possible to get closer to the sensation of playing on real grass. The technique, using fibres of less than 50 mm and a mixed ballast layer composed of sand and tyre granulate, has been approved by football’s highest authorities: the French Football Federation (FFF), FIFA and UEFA. World Cup qualification matches can now be played on these surfaces, on the condition that they satisfy very strict homologation criteria. The Clairefontaine site has thus been equipped with a pitch of this type for training practice for the French national team, as has the site of Marcoussis for the French national rugby team.

An economical choice

It is possible to play on this type of pitch in practically all climatic conditions. Its use is unlimited, versus a limitation of 16h per week for natural turf. Synthetic turf requires no fertiliser, no mowing, no marking, no watering, and needs 2 to 3 times less maintenance than natural turf. Certain municipalities install synthetic turf in order to reduce their water consumption. Others, on the contrary, use it to combat excessive rainfall, which makes natural turf unusable. Today, RC Lens, Olympique Lyonnais, Olympique de Marseille, FC Nantes and PSG already have their own synthetic turf training grounds, and around 30 new pitches are homologated every year.

A solution for the future

Synthetic turf is a solution for the future thanks to its numerous advantages over natural turf: nothing is torn out during tackles in football or the scrum in rugby, rapid evacuation of water after bad weather, absence of frost on the pitch, and permanent ball bounce quality regardless of the climatic conditions. Thanks to the flexibility of tyre granulate, the latest generation of synthetic turf makes it possible to reduce sport-based trauma. Both rugby and football players appreciate being able to train all through the winter on a pitch that has no mud, no bumps and no frost.

In 2005, Aliapur, in particular with the ADEME and the scientific interest group EEDEMS, undertook a scientific study programme evaluating the health and environmental risks of the filler materials used in synthetic turf. The results showed that these surfaces have no impact on the health of users or on the balance of the environment.

Moving towards a European standard

The end-of-life tyre recycling sector is particularly committed to the standardisation works for sports surfaces, be it at the national level with the GE2 expert group at the Standardisation Commission devoted to ELT, or at the European level in the context of the works of the TC217 since the creation of the TG Health and Safety in Berlin in October 2006, now known as WG10. Still with the EEDEMS, Aliapur has thus developed methods for measuring the environmental impact of synthetic turf on the percolation of rain water (leaching). These studies made it possible to simulate, over a period of two weeks in the laboratory, the equivalent of the real conditions of a pitch over a period of three months. The principle is to reproduce at a reduced scale in a laboratory a complete section of synthetic turf (fibres, sand, filler materials). The results of Aliapur’s works have been shown to the European experts in WG10 so that they can be used as the basis for the development of a European standard.

The works resulted in the creation of a consensus document: the standard CEN TS 16384.

Further documents

• Environnemental evaluation (Aliapur/Ademe/Fieldturf Tarkett, 2007)
• Video (Aliapur)