Emily Oster

2 minute read Emily Oster

Emily Oster

Are the Chemicals in Artificial Turf Dangerous?

Q&A on plastics

Emily Oster

2 minute read

How dangerous is artificial turf? We recently moved into a house with artificial turf, and my son loves it. It’s convenient, clean, and looks nice. I’ve also seen a couple articles about PFAS chemicals present, warning that I could be exposing us to cancerous chemicals. Can you share your perspective?

—Matt

There are two ways to look at this.

Artificial turf does contain a lot of chemicals. This is, by the way, pretty broadly true of many exposures you have — plastics in your house, playground equipment, toys, etc. Chemicals, including those that have been linked to cancer in some concentrations, are everywhere.

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In addition, animals with extensive exposure to artificial turf (like earthworms that live in it) do show some negative effects, especially with hormone disruption. 

These two pieces of evidence might suggest concern.

On the other hand, the proposed links with cancer in people aren’t supported in the data (see, e.g., this nice summary paper). And no other evaluation of other links has been done. 

My perspective is that the exposure that your son has through the artificial turf is going to be a very small part of his overall chemical exposure, and, as a result, I would not worry about it. 

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