Fake lawn: The environmental impact of artificial turf

Fake lawn meant keeping the yard neat with minimal effort and more time to spend outdoors tending to plants.

"It's maintenance-free and always looking nice," Mr Gheevarghese said.

Their yard is one of several in their Wright street that's gone grass-free.

The next street over, the owners of almost every property have ditched grass for an artificial alternative, a trend not limited to Wright.

Easycare Hydroturf's Ben Donoghue said fake lawn had surged in popularity in Canberra's newer suburbs, including Coombs, Taylor and Denman Prospect.

Mr Donoghue's spray-on grass company uses a mix of seed, mulch, fertiliser and water to help Canberra clients reach their vision of the perfect lawn.

He said investors who owned multiple properties in the ACT were particularly attracted to the artificial alternative as it was perceived to be less likely to get trashed from one tenant to the next.

"Definitely the last two years in the new suburbs - where you might've seen a couple in the street - now it's every second or third house," he said.

At around $110 to $160 per square metre to have it laid, artificial turf doesn't come cheap.

Sebastian Pfautsch, urban heat expert at Western Sydney University, said the environmental cost was much more significant.

Artificial turf is made of microplastics thought to break down and end up in waterways. It smothers and probably destroys the composition of the soil it is laid on, it conducts heat which is thought to change the microclimate of suburbs and, ultimately, it ends up in landfill, Dr Pfautsch said.

"Of course, artificial turf itself is made from crude oil, so you need to extract fossil fuels to then produce the plastic that you need for making artificial turf," he said.

Dr Pfautsch said where natural lawn would transpire when wet and have a cooling effect, artificial turf was usually lined with black webbing, meaning it can reach a surface temperature of up to 100 degrees in summer.

He said when yards heat up so did houses, meaning residents were more reliant on air conditioning.

"If you en masse introduce artificial lawn in our suburbs, they become warmer, and they need more cooling, which leads to more CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels," he said.

"So there's some really large-scale implications."

A CSIRO study undertaken several years ago showed the urban heat island effect was causing large temperature differences between parts of Canberra - up to 10 degrees or more on a hot day.

The ACT government is now working with CSIRO scientists to better understand the cooling benefits of different forms of living infrastructure in Canberra.

The project includes monitoring the temperature and humidity of synthetic grass to evaluate its effect on urban microclimates.

It's expected the study will inform policy designed to prevent the ACT from adopting potentially maladaptive responses to the impacts of climate change, including the use of synthetic grass.

Dr Pfautsch believed it should be banned in new suburbs.

"Once you get to a new suburb and you look at demonstration homes, the first thing you see is synthetic turf," he said.

"They use this material because there is a lot of foot traffic and it looks nice and green all the time and they don't need to spend anything on maintenance.

"So we think, 'Oh, that's nice. I don't need to mow the lawn anymore, it's always nice and green. I'll put it in as well'."

Dr Pfautsch said measuring the temperature change effect from artificial turf alone was difficult, as new suburbs looked different in more ways than just their green grass.

He said the trend across capital cities in Australia was for people in new suburbs to build big houses with small yards, which meant very little room to plant trees.

"Even in 20 or 30 years' time, there will be no shade around those homes that have synthetic turf," he said.

"When you have hundreds of people bringing in this kind of material then, of course, you see differences in microclimate, which also affects the wider community."

City-dwellers aren't just saying goodbye to grass in their backyards, either. Fake lawn is being rolled out on verges, shopfronts and increasingly on sports fields across the country.

It was announced Melrose would go synthetic in 2017, while Hawker, Gold Creek, the Australian National University and the Australian Institute of Sport have all laid synthetic grass on sports fields in the not-too-distant past, too.

Dr Pfautsch said as cities densified councils around the country were putting it in with the hope of cutting down on maintenance and producing a perfect-looking pitch.

Instead of spending money buying back more land and putting in more fields, it's easier to put down something that's weatherproof and can keep up with the extra foot traffic.

Rates go up to cover the material and installation cost, which meant people were asked to pay more to use ovals - turning poorer communities away from sport.

"There's lots of issues that have nothing to do with the material," Dr Pfautsch said.

"It's about how we use our urban spaces and how many people live in our cities, and how we regulate who is using sports fields and when."

Dr Pfautsch said older sports fields with natural turf were often poorly designed which meant drainage was bad and they damaged easily.

"When you have them done nicely, they can be used for the same hours as synthetic fields," he said.

Dr Pfautsch was one of several experts who informed a report commissioned by the NSW government into the potential risks to the environment and human health from the use of synthetic turf in public spaces.

Despite the report being completed in 2022, the findings have yet to be made public.

Dr Pfautsch said, despite multiple requests, those who worked on it have been unable to get public access.

"We contributed substantially using taxpayers' money to get the writing done and get the reports ready," he said.

"Now the government is sitting on this report, which of course won't be very positive, because the material itself isn't very good."

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Dr Pfautsch said given the changed climate it was worth examining what Australians wanted from their backyards and whether families will spend much time in them when there are weeks of temperatures above 35 degrees.

"We could rethink how gardens are used and what we really want from them as a service," he said.

"Much more looking into providing habitat for biodiversity, for pollinators and things that will be critical when it's getting really hot, like shelter and food," he said.

"There's certainly concern for how private outdoor space will be used in the future when it's hot."

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