Banning Artificial Lawn

Bushfires raging. Floods submerging towns and rural properties. Tragic events taking place in Australia as I write. Causing chaos and massive loss of property and livestock, and sadly, lives of citizens, all around our world. Not just here in Australia.

Global warming continues to gain a stronger foothold, melting our polar regions and turning the lives of wondrous creatures such as Polar Bears upside down.

And yet we continue with practices that further warm the planet.

A little ray of hope appeared in Perth this week that might demonstrate a changing of attitude concerning a practice that has concerned many for a decade or so.

As our natural water supply dries up, thousands of home owners have opted to replace green lawns with artificial turf. Yes that saved a power of water...as well as tonnes of fertiliser not being applied, ending up in our water table.

The positives, our councils have since discovered, are probably outweighed by a range of negatives relating to artificial grass.

During a recent 41c day here in Perth tests indicated artificial turf with temperatures exceeding 81 degrees Celsius. Temperatures of mulch and natural grass registered around a third of those stupendous readings.

And revelations on our local TV news this week revealed that artificial grass releases a range of toxins into the ground when overheated. Toxins which eventually find their way into our water table.

Many local councils have announced that artificial turf will no longer be allowed on nature strips. And some councils might no longer approve it's use within a property. At least that's my takeaway from news reports last Monday evening.

Thereby cooling our suburbs and preventing potential future negative consequences from released toxins.

Now, I am no expert on this subject and am only commenting on information released from councils and reports on council websites.

It makes sense to me. Hopefully one of.many steps needed to cool things down as we continue to break temperature records here, and repeated floods, both here and around the world.