The rubber in artificial turf decays into a potentially dangerous chemical cocktail, new research shows

New research examines the complex and potentially dangerous miasma of chemicals released by crumb rubber, a fill material used in many artificial turf fields.

If you grew up in America — or much of the rest of the world — in the past 30 years, chances are that you’ve played on synthetic turf. 

The small, spongy black beads used as fill material in most artificial turf fields are called crumb rubber, which has long been touted as a major win for recycling. However, conflicting studies have alternately identified crumb rubber as either safe for people to play atop or dangerous to human health.

New research out of Northeastern University investigated the decay cycle of crumb rubber, which is fashioned out of old tires. By simulating the conditions in which the rubber decays, like strong sunlight, they discovered that crumb rubber is highly reactive, generating hundreds of previously untracked chemicals as it decays, some of which are hazardous to humans.

Swimming upstream
​Zhenyu Tian, an assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology, says researchers have long known that tire rubber produces harmful transformation chemicals as it breaks down. A transformation chemical is the product of a chemical reaction, the new chemical left behind. In the case of artificial turf, transformation results from things like sunlight, rain and natural decay over time.

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