Has anyone ever noticed all of the dust and dirt that comes off the artificial turf (especially evident during replays) when players cut? I guess my question is...what is this stuff? just dirt that blows into the field? pollution?
I think I saw this occur during OU-BYU. Is the mesh in the turf breaking down?
I didn't really notice anything at the OU-BYU game, but your question reminds me of some piece I heard on the radio over the summer that compared the relative healthiness of grass and sport turf.
The thrust was that astroturf/sport turf doesn't need water, and therefore doesn't get washed down as regularly as regular grass.
As a result, the artificial stuff can collect dust, sweat, pollen, blood, and whatever else happens to be floating around. At the "root" level of astroturf, you don't really know what you might find growing down there, or what kind of toxins lurk below the surface.
Groundskeepers responsible for artificial turf may or maynot be spraying the stuff down with antibacterial cleaners. The routine in which cleaning takes place varies from field to field. And when astroturf does get cleaned, it's with a power wash. The cleaning chemicals might linger, and you really have no way to measure it's cleanliness. An indoor turf field doesn't even get the benefits from the disinfecting rays of the sun.
One of the recommendations was for the manufacturers of astroturf to spend some time in the labs developing anti-bacterial plastics, and improve guidelines for long-term care and maintanence.
Real grass is babied by grounds keepers on a daily and weekly basis. And since grass is a living, growing organism, the root level has to be healthy enough to support life. It's getting pure water and sunshine. So even though there their might be mud and dirt on a grass field, it's likely that the dirt will causing an infection when a player gets a cut.
I don't know what to think of that radio piece.
