Well, it's not just saving water. It also does not require the use of fertilizer (which often is petroleum-based and includes phosphates which wreak havoc when it runs off the lawn) or the use of a mower (which, in many cases, is a power mower that contributes significantly to local pollution).

All that aside, however, I cannot think of a reason in the world that this is not made from recycled materials, and would avoid it for that reason, if no other.

My first thought is that, if it is not recyclable, what do you do with it in "10-15 years"? Interesting - I've never seen this one!

Dee

Why? Fake flowers and plants next? Just go with rock.

Hi Steve. We've only used fertiliser when we've sown the seed. Good point about mowing. I've long thought wouldn't it be great if you could get rechargable solar mowers. Small garden shed with a roller door, mower plugged in on one side and whippersnipper, etc on the other, shelves in the middle for secateurs, etc, and solar panels on the roof.

Hi Dee. Yes, that was my first thought too. And how long before you replace it does it start to look a little worn? Or faded? And something else just occurred to me. What might be the effect on animals? If you have cats or dogs, which sometimes chew on grass, would they know not to eat it? What about the birds that eat insects on or just below grass? So you're saying synthetic lawns aren't used in the US?

Fake flowers. Aachenelf, you must've seen my mother's garden! What I don't understand is she has plenty of lovely real plants too, many of them with flowers. The fake ones look so incongruous to me.

A HORRIBLE idea. Unthinkable.

What does a lawn do? It's green, it's fresh during the rainy season, it smells good when it's cut, you can roll around on it with your children or your dogs and stain your clothes. All good things. I've never been a lawn fanatic: ours got cut once in a while and absolutely never watered. Grass doesn't deserve it. If water is restricted, for heaven's sake redesign your ground using unthirsty plants. They're out there. If you have a big lawn, you can plant trees; if you have a small one, create a paved terrace and a garden. The plants cool the air, supply oxygen, and lock up carbon dioxide. I can think of absolutely nothing more wasteful than to have an expanse of ground devoted to nothing more than being flat, green, and dead.

This may be of interest to you;
www.heavenlygreens.com
The new Stonebrae Elementary School Sport Field is synthetic, but I do not know which specific @Brand was installed. In a very heavy rain spell I watched the soccer players having fun and staying clean. I have also seen dogs in extacy rolling on it. It does feel very soft and clean. I don't grow high mantence grass, but love thyme as a groundcover where roses won't do but have been thinking of trying the HeavenlyGreen to solve some drainage challenges around the front of our home to move water from the foundation. No chores, but also no purifing water but to hide a drainage issue esthetically intrigues me. I have no answer for the wildlife question but will try to observe and also watch to see how long it holds up in harsh conditions and heavy use at the school. Don't know how it will be recycled yet either.

What about people who paved over their lawn and brought in fake plants & trees?

Here is a link that might be useful: Goodbye, lawn, hello, paved yards

Good grief! If they did something like that around here, they certainly would have to pay more in monthly storm water runoff fees. I suppose though, if you can spend the money to do stuff like that, it wouldn't matter much.

K

Intended to mention, the SuperBowl was synthetic turf also.

Yeah, I guess we do have artificial turf here - I just never thought of it as being used for private lawns. The thought of people having artificial turf never crossed my mind. It's something I think of as being in sports fields. Let's hope it stays that way, lol!

:)
Dee

Well, I got to walk on synthetic lawn today. It was on display at the show (like a state fair). Felt wobbly. It must be quite different to the stuff they use for sports fields. Nobody was on duty when we were there so I wasn't able to ask questions.

aachenelf
how does your area bill people for stormwater runoff?
here in Florida retention pods are everywhere because of the rainy season (summer) dumping several inches of rain in short time. they call my house "waterfront" because it's on such a pond. lol.
I've wondered whether my neighbors very manicured lawn, heavily fertilized, etc was more environmentally harmful than if it were paved over. Of course he wouldn't do that because he loves his lawn.
In a town south of us (Marco Island) a homeowner DID install artifical turf because of maintenance issues and the cost of irrigation. The city took him to court.

naplesgardener, why did the city take this homeowner to court?

kevin, you have to pay for stormwater run-off?? Is that a regular maintenance fee, or do you pay per storm? By this do you mean a sewer fee? All the runoff from any storm here goes in my basement, lol, so I don't have to pay anything... well, at least not to the city!

:)
Dee

naplesgardner and Dee

It's my understanding that by Federal Law, everyone has to pay something, somewhere for storm water runoff. In Mpls for a long time it was just figured into our monthly sewer charges, but again because of the Federal Law it now has to appear somewhere as a separate line item.

On my monthly water/sewer/storm water runoff maintenance fee bill there is a separate charge for this based on the amount of impervious surface I have. That includes: sidewalks, driveways, roof size - basically anything water can't penetrate. I live in the city and have a very tiny lot. For me the fee is around $17 per month. Some of my friends who have large garages and driveways are paying around $35 per month.

It's really kind of a big deal around here because businesses can be hit very hard (as well they should) when you consider the size of parking lots. Now if you find another way to deal with the storm water runoff on your property, you can reduce your bill. I think more of them are doing this especially in new construction.

I believe some communities are listing this as an annual fee on property tax statements instead of monthly utility bills.

Kevin

kevin
you info made me go look at my property tax bill and sure enough we're billed $175/yr (14.58/mo) for "water management" which must be for run-off among other things.
I don't know how they arrive at that figure other than lot size (ours is a small lot).

dee
I don't know the basis for Marco Island suing the homeowner. MI has a reputation for being very restrictive though and my recollection is that the homeowner was fed up with being cited for an unsightly yard so he put the synthetic lawn in. I don't know how it all turned out.

kevin, I'm on a well, and I have a septic system, so I don't get a water bill or a sewer bill. Hmm, and my taxes are paid through my mortgage company, so I've never seen a property tax bill! Interesting. I will have to call city hall and see what's what. While we don't have sewers in this area, there are storm drains, so...

naplesgardener, I kind of feel bad for this homeowner, lol! He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't! He was cited for an unsightly yard, and when he tried a no-maintenance way to deal with it, he was cited for that. Much as I don't like the idea of synthetic grass, I can't help but think "poor guy"!!

:)
Dee

The fees proposed in my area but not instituted yet were to go to the local water conservancy for maintenance of the local watersheds. I agree to that in principle, but also think it's a joke inasmuch as the way development has destroyed springheads and the sloppy way this type of feed into our waterways are handled. It may/may not pass, there was such a furor. It was also such an ambiguous system of assessment. Households were something like fifteen dollars per annum and businesses not much more, even if they had two hundred acres under macadam or roof. Little or no differentiation was made either between homeowners who took conservation measures and those who did not.

I know that in my state anyway, the state has the jurisdiction to own water. You may have it in your ground, through collections of rainwater in your cisterns, or running through your land by stream, but the state has the power to step in and regulate how you handle it.

I wish all communities were more transparent about these fees. Most people I talk to outside of our city have no idea they're even being charged for this or what the whole issue is about.
If you don't know anything about the problems with stormwater runoff, how can you attempt to do anything about it?

Here at least there are ways to lower your monthly fees, but I don't know how many people are even making an attempt to do so. Other than rain gardens, most of the suggested ways are probably not that attractive to the majority of Mpls. residents.

K

Here is a link that might be useful: Credits

"Frustrated by extreme changes in the weather -- floods this year, droughts last year -- some homeowners are simply giving up. They're replacing ferns and palms with lifelike fakes, pulling up the sod and putting down stone, concrete and other types of paving, and drastically shrinking planting beds."

And they wonder why it floods every time it rains hard and the rivers dry up in the summer. All the water runs off and floods the downstream rivers, and very little soaks back into the ground to replenish the water table.

Instead of trying to fix the problem people are making it worse by ignoring it and hoping it will go away.

With less than 3% of the water on the earth fresh and even less of that actually drinkable, I would think we would be more concerned about more and more of it being pumped out of the ground and dumped into the oceans while very little is being replaced.

Here is a link that might be useful: Article

Some homeowners are giving up but some are doing amazing things. See www.sustainablehouse.com.au. There's a link to The House That Mike and Heather Built which is very informative. (Sorry I haven't figured out how to do links.)

I drove past a synthetic lawn last week. It looked somehow odd and on the way back later I saw the sign confirming what it was.

Haven't noticed any mention of the thousands of tiny plastic balls that bounce off the synthetic grass when feet, etc hit the ground. Surely these wash out to the street and down to the gutter, which in the Bay Area (NorCal) goes straight into the bay.

Would they be bits of the underlay working their way to the surface? Yuk.

I've never read so much miss-information in my life. Most of the responses in this tread are by people who have no idea what they are taking about. that being said - here are some facts.

I was extremely resistant to the idea of a "fake" lawn. I mean, I'm a grass kind of person. There are no synthetic lawn companies anywhere near me so I started doing internet research on the product. Talked to several companies. To make a long story short I ended up deciding to use a company called ProGreen to order my synthetic lawn (about 2000 sf).
1. you get what you pay for; if you buy the low-end grass you get a low end product.
2. Synthetic lawn is not cheap: $12-$14 a square foot if you have someone install it; About $4.25 a square foot if you do it yourself like I did.
3. It drains very much just like real grass.
4. Dogs and cats love it, don't chew it, and you clean it up just like real grass.
5. I roll around on it, play on it, and go out and lie in the sun on it just like real grass. I love it.
6. Todays syn grasses carry 8 yr warrenties, but will last 20.
7. The little rubber balls are not even required in the "good grasses" - read that thicker, longer grasses.
8. The syn grass gets a little warmer in full sun, but cools quickly in late afternoon
9. It's the best landscaping decision I ever made, looks and feels incredibly real. I hose or blow it off every couple of months. Most of the time it doesn't need it. I like it so much in front, I put some in back. My dog spends hours sleeping and playing on - never complainted yet :)

splais

I think you need to do some research. There are so many things wrong with your statement I really don't know where to start, but let me respond to just one of them.

"It drains very much just like real grass."

The idea is have rainwater (or any water) go back into the ground, not drain away. Have you ever heard of groundwater? Where do you think that comes from?

I still have to wonder about a couple of things though. What can be done with it when it wears out? If it'll last twenty years why is the warranty only for eight?

The water does not "run off" a synthetic lawn. That's one of the falacies that continually gets raised. It drains just like a real lawn. The lawn is heavily perforated, a drainage base is prepared and any water just runs right through it. It is designed to be that way. I have found it to be very realistic in its drainage characteristics to real grass. Water will run off it if you get a torrent - just like real grass. Sometimes I think my syn lawn actually drains better than the real lawn I had and it doesn't get all mushy and muddy. I will caveat the above with the statement that it does have to be installed properly; and I suspect it would not drain quit as well if on a steep slope.

You want to try for something else I made a mistake on.

As to the other comment about what to do with it when it wears out in 20 years? That's a good question. What I will do is roll it up and haul it to our local landfill. After years of no chemicals, no labor, no water, no repairs, no mowing it will be worth it.