top of page
CCMC new logo - text right.png

Supporting grass fields

Real Grass Fields for Healthy Students and Budgets!

Action needed:

  1. June 18 at 6pm: Sign up for a speaker slot at the BOE meeting on June 25th at 4pm. Sign up starts at 6pm sharp on June 18th for June 25 testimony slot. Here’s the link to the sign up form that can be used from 6pm. The location for Board of Education meetings is 15 West Gude Drive, the Patricia B. O'Neill Board of Education Room, Rockville, Maryland 20850.

  2. Between June 18 and June 24: Use this action alert to email BOE members and call them at 240-740-3030 on this issue. The Board will continue to accept written, pre-recorded audio and video submissions, so please send them to BOETestimony@mcpsmd.org. All testimonies will be made available to the public - see more on the MCPS website).

  3. June 25th at 4pm: Please join us at the BOE meeting, where BOE will consider changes to full FY27 budget. The location for Board of Education meetings is 15 West Gude Drive, the Patricia B. O'Neill Board of Education Room, Rockville, Maryland 20850.

  4. June 26 through July: Changes may take place through July so please continue calling the Board members. Please email boe@mcpsmd.org to reach all Board members. Please see the list of Board members and their individual email addresses  here https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/boe/members/.

Petition for natural grass at MCPS - collage.png

By speaking, writing and calling, you can encourage the Board of Education to start to rescue our kids - and the county budget - from the unhealthy extravagance of plastic play surfaces. Even a reduction in overall funding for athletic field installation leaves sufficient funding for MCPS to fully upgrade all the fields in question as state of the art grass fields. The Board of Education and MCPS have a choice: either a few fields as plastic synthetic turf or at least 4 times as many fields as modern, cool, healthy, more durable grass fields at the targeted schools, and more.  

​

Unless it is stopped, Montgomery County Public Schools is set to pave ALL remaining MCPS high school playfields with dozens of acres of hot, toxin-laden, disposable, plastic fake grass carpets (aka artificial or synthetic turf) instead of more modern, safe, healthy, cost-effective, durable, sustainable turf-grass fields -- at an extravagant cost of over $60 million, just in the next six years.

​

Furthermore, MCPS will be locked in to continually replacing some of the 60+ acres of plastic carpeting at $1 million per field for decades to come, a cost NOT associated with real grass). In the meantime, the majority of the hundreds of school fields that are still grass, and will remain grass, languish from neglect and lack of equitable investment and oversight.

Why investing in real grass fields is so important?

 “Synthetic turf” fields are costly plastic carpeted heat islands – each 2-acre plastic field generates 100s of tons of waste and sheds microplastics into the air the students breathe as well as into the soil, water over its 8-10 year usable life. The plastic carpet becomes hotter than asphalt in the sun, while grass is always close to ambient air temperature. Furthermore, according to MCPS,  for the  multimillion dollar price of a single plastic synthetic turf they can install at least 4 cool, health-giving durable sustainable grass fields (and unlike plastic there is no disposal and replacement cost).


MCPS created the access and playability problem by disinvesting in grass field design,  and management and ignoring experts over the past 20 years. MCPS complains about poorly designed and managed grass ( MCPS’s  fault), while ignoring or downplaying the health, environmental and playability problems created by dozens of acres of disposable, disintegrating  plastic carpets now falling apart in our midst. 

​

First:  Real GRASS TURF FIELDS CAN be constructed and maintained to be high-performing, high-use and durable, while cooling and oxygenating the air around the players, filtering rain water and providing a firm but forgiving surface for play. They can do so at a fraction of the cost of plastic fields but grass fields have struggled because they’ve never been funded properly or given the appropriate expert attention that is provided to disposable, short-lived plastic fields. MCPS owes it to parents, students and taxpayers to create the safer, softer, cooler & cost-effective  grass surfaces that athletes from amateurs up to the NFL,NCAA, and FIFA all want.

Second: Plastic fields are losers on every angle:

  1. HEAT ISLANDS: Exertional heat stroke is the #1 cause of death in high school football. The plastic synthetic-turf carpet is 30 to 60 degrees hotter than ambient temperature, no matter the infill used between the blades, and hotter even than asphalt, on over more than 2 acres per field.

  2. HIGH INJURY: Plastic fields cause higher injury rates - especially severe abrasions and knee and ankle injuries, the top injuries for football.

  3. Microplastics and chemical stew:  Plastic blades on synturf fields continually disintegrate. Students at play are exposed to microplastics in dust from the field and related chemicals shedding from plastic field carpets. Young people, whose bodies are still developing are more sensitive to environmental toxicns

  4. COST: Plastic fields cost at least 4 times as much as grass fields to design and install according to MCPS.  MCPS pays $2.75 to $3.6M for each new plastic field and pays over $1M for each plastic replacement field every 8-10 years. By investing in well designed high quality grass fields they will save money as well as student health.

  5. UNSUSTAINABLE PLASTIC WASTE: Used plastic synturf carpets from fields weigh 220+ tons. Moving and disposing of them is costly. There is NO real recycling for plastic carpets.

​

These plastic fields make a mockery of MCPS’ and the County’s sustainability and plastic reduction goals. Let’s hold these elected officials accountable. This is YOUR money down the literal drain with the disintegrating fibers from plastic fields. And they should do right for student health and safety, NOT for the arguable convenience of school administrators.

Resources 

bottom of page