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The artificial grass industry has come under a lot of pressure from environmental agencies for quite some time now, leading to a lot of questions around just how eco friendly it is and how easy it is to recycle. There is a lot of proof that when it comes to the maintenance of..

The importance of what is under your feet is one of the most important factors for athletes and their coaches, yet is the same true for footballers on synthetic turf? In conversation with an international athletic coach, I learned that when the surface is a top quality, Olympic standard track, athletes wear specific footwear designed..

Think back to when your synthetic turf pitch was first installed. Not only was it exciting, a new facility, but also the surface was pristine, often state of the art and designed to last for the next decade. Well a few years have passed, the pitch has been used and has aged, the time has come, or very soon, for it to be replaced.

It started with a question, “What can we do to make a better synthetic turf pitch for football and rugby”? This set our minds racing. For years, R&D departments at synthetic turf companies have focussed on improving the shape of the fibre, how many fibres there are per square metre, even how rows of fibres are spaced..

A truism is that a poor quality surface, really well installed, will look much better than a badly installed, high quality turf. It will also play and last better. The ideal scenario is a correctly installed, high quality synthetic turf surface, where the client receives a defect free pitch. To achieve this..

The benefits of having a shock pad underneath your synthetic turf are well discussed, so when such an investment is made, it is reasonable to expect the chosen pad to last beyond the life of the synthetic turf. For new build pitches, this is now the case, with some excellent pads being installed along with more robust in situ rubber pads from specialist installers.

Quite simply, a shock pad will make your surface play better and last longer due to its shock absorbing qualities. That, on its own, should be sufficient reason to always choose a shock pad. Surprisingly that isn’t always the case under 3G pitches. There are different types of shock pad, but all offer resilience for the player, and reduce compaction within the playing surface.

Getting the infill right in the first place and keeping it that way offers you the best chance to ensure your synthetic surface will play to its best. To start on a positive note, when most synthetic turf pitches are properly installed and maintained, the infill is working as it was designed to.
But, is yours?

As we all know, real grass needs water, in fact, it needs a lot of water – especially during summer season. Artificial grass on the other hand doesn’t, unless you want to install a water-based hockey pitch. So, you are not only doing something good for the environment, but also saving yourself money by reducing your water bills.

The use of synthetic turf in schools has been a significant development in providing sports facilities over the last thirty or more years. Governments have tasked education bodies to increase outdoor activity, embrace sports and improve the welfare of their students. This has seen a change..