Tons of abandoned artificial turf raises questions about recycling promises

By David Abel Boston Globe Staff, Updated July 18, 2024

PORTSMOUTH — Two years ago, as local officials debated whether to replace the city’s high school athletic fields with new artificial turf, Superintendent Zach McLaughlin promised the school board that tens of thousands of square feet of the old turf would be recycled.

Local environmental advocates urged the city to plant grass instead, noting that artificial turf is not only filled with toxic chemicals and requires large amounts of fossil fuels to manufacture, but that it’s difficult to recycle. They also noted that there’s little evidence that such large fields are ever fully recycled, despite industry claims.

The school district decided to proceed with installing new turf and paid a Massachusetts company more than a half million dollars to oversee the work, including recycling.

Nearly a year after the Canton-based Atlantic Sports Group removed the old turf, environmental advocates did something that appears to be unprecedented and confirmed long-held fears about the industry’s turf-recycling claims: They managed to track down the old turf and discovered that it had been abandoned in an otherwise empty, dimly lit warehouse in New Jersey. They also found it listed for sale on Facebook Marketplace.

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