A serious question, how much worse is artificial turf compared to natural grass? Yes artificial is plastic and manufactured from oil etc. Once made how long does it last/ how do you maintain it/ how do you dispose of it? Is it that bad in certain situations (replacing a small city centre concreted courtyard/ a play area for kids etc)? Compare this to my grass. Now please don’t judge me and I guess many others will be similar to me but I use a petrol mower maybe weekly for 6/8 months of the year using maybe 20 litres of petrol, I bought a plastic fuel can, I service the mower with new oil each year, I use an electric scarifier once a year, add a weed/feed once or twice a year (how is this chemical made, delivered to the shops, does it harm the biome etc). Yes, I could never mow my lawn, get a push mower, never feed it etc, I know it would be greener. I am notthe sure just how much greener I am, say over the 10 year life span of artificial grass (if it is fit and forget.)
My natural lawn, if you can call it that, has lots of flowers growing up through it, so attracts the pollinators. It also has worms beneath, so attracts the birds. Yes, I mow it probably 12 times a year with an electric mower. I feed it about once every five years. I scarify it twice a year, with a hand scrake. Yes, I buy a new mower every ten years or so. But which is worse, the plastic, sterile lawn, or the ways in which any of us maintain the natural, creature-friendly lawn? Having seen what damage plastic does to this world, I would like to leave this world, knowing that I have NOT added to its demise. But, if I want to live in relative comfort, that's not likely.
A serious question, how much worse is artificial turf compared to natural grass? Yes artificial is plastic and manufactured from oil etc. Once made how long does it last/ how do you maintain it/ how do you dispose of it? Is it that bad in certain situations (replacing a small city centre concreted courtyard/ a play area for kids etc)? Compare this to my grass. Now please don’t judge me and I guess many others will be similar to me but I use a petrol mower maybe weekly for 6/8 months of the year using maybe 20 litres of petrol, I bought a plastic fuel can, I service the mower with new oil each year, I use an electric scarifier once a year, add a weed/feed once or twice a year (how is this chemical made, delivered to the shops, does it harm the biome etc). Yes, I could never mow my lawn, get a push mower, never feed it etc, I know it would be greener. I am not sure just how much greener I am, say over the 10 year life span of artificial grass (if it is fit and forget.)
This touches on something that has long bothered me. How environmentally sound is gardening? We buy compost in large plastic bags, plant pots are mostly plastic, the industry that produces bedding plants etc. uses chemicals and is still permitted to use peat, most visits to garden centres are by car, and where do all our spring flowering bulbs come from? Are we any better than those who wish to have somewhere nice to sit and drink a beer and watch the kids playing football? I hate plastic lawns but it is one of those situations where, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone".
This touches on something that has long bothered me. How environmentally sound is gardening?
It's a good question often debated on the forum. It's certainly not a certainty to say "we are gardeners and therefore always on the side of the angels". It's a big question and worth doing a deep dive to explore it". Simple binary answers and shrugs are not helpful.
That’s a good point @Ceres and I think it’s something we will all have to consider. I’ve made lots of changes over the last few years but very aware that some of these have been relatively easy as my garden is already fairly established and full of plants.
I’ve never used pesticides or weed killers so my latest commitment has been to reduce, hopefully to zero, the amount of new plastic entering our garden.
This was our second year without buying any compost. I use homemade compost and garden soil for pots and sowing seeds. Yes it’s weedy but I know my weeds so they easy to recognise and remove. Our soil is a heavy loam but I haven’t had any noticeable problems with germination rates ( I don’t have/ buy grit, perlite etc).
We now only buy feeds we can get in cardboard boxes such as fish, blood and bone. I make a nettle feed, when I remember, and am debating whether to get some comfrey plants.
I buy my seeds from places like Chiltern seeds as their packs are paper recyclable and our bulbs were similarly packaged in paper.
We’ve already dropped buying winter bedding, initially as a cost saving but we didn’t miss it have agreed to carry on to avoid the plastic trays/pots. Next year we are growing our own summer annuals for our pots and focusing on dahlias and begonias which can be re-used each year.
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
We lazy gardeners are much more eco friendly. We rarely mow the odd blade of grass between the flat wildflowers. We don't spray. . We weed a little. Admittedly, in the spring, we might buy a few plants in plastic pots but depend on wild flowers to fill the empty spaces by themselves. We water less than is necessary. The weeds chucked into a heap out of sight turn into weedy compost - more wildflowers to spread about the garden 😇
I shall probably pee everyone off with my 2p worth, according to the BBC, and I know a lot of people treat them as their bible so it must be true, there’s a very small amount of the U.K. actually built on. Less than the amount of land showing when the tide goes out apparently.
I hate plastic grass, more so the manufacturing of it and of course the disposal, but I do think that the people doing the most complaining live in cities and think that the rest of the country is the same. It isn’t, at the end of our garden there’s a 360 square mile of wildlife play area, and there are many areas like this.
If a few people in towns want plastic grass then that’s no worse than a lot of other things that other people want. New cars, new kitchen appliances every couple of years, flying here there and everywhere on planes, 80,000 planes a day taking of, it’s all a drain. This is what the BBC say. Quote “Ordnance Survey data suggests that all the buildings in the UK - houses, shops, offices, factories, greenhouses - cover 1.4%of the total land surface. Looking at England alone, the figure still rises to only 2%. Buildings cover less of Britain than the land revealed when the tide goes out”
So if 10% of gardens have a bit of plastic grass, it’s really not that much in the grand scheme of things.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Endorsing Lyn’s post, if the United Kingdom was the size of a football pitch, the densely urbanised areas would occupy just one of the little quadrants where a corner is taken.
Posts
Yes, I mow it probably 12 times a year with an electric mower. I feed it about once every five years. I scarify it twice a year, with a hand scrake.
Yes, I buy a new mower every ten years or so. But which is worse, the plastic, sterile lawn, or the ways in which any of us maintain the natural, creature-friendly lawn?
Having seen what damage plastic does to this world, I would like to leave this world, knowing that I have NOT added to its demise. But, if I want to live in relative comfort, that's not likely.
This touches on something that has long bothered me. How environmentally sound is gardening? We buy compost in large plastic bags, plant pots are mostly plastic, the industry that produces bedding plants etc. uses chemicals and is still permitted to use peat, most visits to garden centres are by car, and where do all our spring flowering bulbs come from? Are we any better than those who wish to have somewhere nice to sit and drink a beer and watch the kids playing football? I hate plastic lawns but it is one of those situations where, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone".
It's a good question often debated on the forum. It's certainly not a certainty to say "we are gardeners and therefore always on the side of the angels". It's a big question and worth doing a deep dive to explore it". Simple binary answers and shrugs are not helpful.
I’ve never used pesticides or weed killers so my latest commitment has been to reduce, hopefully to zero, the amount of new plastic entering our garden.
This was our second year without buying any compost. I use homemade compost and garden soil for pots and sowing seeds. Yes it’s weedy but I know my weeds so they easy to recognise and remove. Our soil is a heavy loam but I haven’t had any noticeable problems with germination rates ( I don’t have/ buy grit, perlite etc).
We now only buy feeds we can get in cardboard boxes such as fish, blood and bone. I make a nettle feed, when I remember, and am debating whether to get some comfrey plants.
I buy my seeds from places like Chiltern seeds as their packs are paper recyclable and our bulbs were similarly packaged in paper.
We’ve already dropped buying winter bedding, initially as a cost saving but we didn’t miss it have agreed to carry on to avoid the plastic trays/pots. Next year we are growing our own summer annuals for our pots and focusing on dahlias and begonias which can be re-used each year.
East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
I hate plastic grass, more so the manufacturing of it and of course the disposal, but I do think that the people doing the most complaining live in cities and think that the rest of the country is the same. It isn’t, at the end of our garden there’s a 360 square mile of wildlife play area, and there are many areas like this.
If a few people in towns want plastic grass then that’s no worse than a lot of other things that other people want. New cars, new kitchen appliances every couple of years, flying here there and everywhere on planes, 80,000 planes a day taking of, it’s all a drain.
This is what the BBC say.
Quote
“Ordnance Survey data suggests that all the buildings in the UK - houses, shops, offices, factories, greenhouses - cover 1.4%of the total land surface. Looking at England alone, the figure still rises to only 2%. Buildings cover less of Britain than the land revealed when the tide goes out”
So if 10% of gardens have a bit of plastic grass, it’s really not that much in the grand scheme of things.
I feel I have a fairly small carbon footprint ... for a westerner. But, of course, it is all relative.