Reply to Petition to Arlington County to Ban use of crumb rubber on fields

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Reply to "Petition to Arlington County to Ban use of crumb rubber on fields"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I guess ideally we could just put these fields out of use until the answer is determined.[/quote]

Exactly.

[/quote]

The underlying assumption is there is no cost in doing so. To the contrary, there is ample evidence that exercise is very, very good for people, and artificial turf allows people to exercise more than any other alternative. I say this not as a rubber-industry shill, but as someone who plays in adult games three times a week. I know that I would not be able to do so if there was not an artificial turf field available to me. First, because artificial turf just allows the field to be used more. Natural grass cannot be used after a heavy rainfall -- which is one day in three in our climate -- and can't be used at all from November to April. An artificial turf field stands up to thousands of hours of use a year, a grass field will be wrecked after hundreds. But more important, on artificial turf my fifty-year-old body can play three times a week on my fifty-year-old joints and for the most part avoid injury -- something that I have not found to be true on any other surface.

The benefit of exercise is real and known. Artificial turf has become so common that the danger, if any, cannot be large, or it would already be showing up in population studies. There is no nationwide epidemic of unexplained cancers in high school students. Whatever the danger, I am convinced that the benefit of regular exercise outweighs it.

So no, it wouldn't be a good idea to put the fields out of use until the danger is determined.[/quote]

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