Are the Chemicals In Artificial Turf Dangerous?

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 PFA 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, which in some concentrations are linked to cancer. This is, by the way, pretty broadly true of a lot of 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.

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.