Do You or Your Child Play Soccer/Football on Crumb Rubber Turf? Be Informed.

My significant other plays indoor soccer on an many artificial turfs all over our province. This week, one of the teammates brought to our attention the possible danger of crumb rubber turf.

Crumb rubber turf is mostly made of recycled tires. Link.. Recently, there has been an increase in cancer cases within the community of keepers/goalies who are taking dive after dive into this crumb rubber turf. When a player dives onto the turf, the small pieces of rubber go flying, landing in mouths, shoes, uniforms, and open wounds and scrapes. Aside from being incredibly annoying, there is a chance that this is the carcinogen plaguing players.



Please read this link for more information. NBC News Link

Now, we all know that correlation does not guarantee causation, but it is a very curious case, and it's always good to be able to make informed choices. Crumb rubber turf has been cleared in many studies by the FDA, who says it poses no risks to players. The FDA is not foolproof though, Google "Vioxx" if you would like an example where the FDA failed to protect the US public. I'm sure there are more.

Replacing artificial turf can be wildly expensive, and this may (or may not) provide motivation for keeping crumb rubbers possible carcinogenic effect underwraps.

I'm not saying crumb rubber 100% is the cause, but I hope players and parents will look into this for themselves and stay informed.

a reply to: Atsbhct

If they think tire rubber is the cause then they should see whether tire fitters have a high rate of cancer.

a reply to: VoidHawk

Maybe that's a good place to start. I'm not sure tire fitters are getting tire bits in their mouths, but who knows. It may be a flawed experiment, as most employees fitting tires would be coming into contact with other mechanical and vehicle related carcinogens.

a reply to: VoidHawk

They are working with new tires, not tires with thousands of miles of road grime, chemicals etc. built up on them. Not to mention they are dealing with whole tires, not ground up bits of them that end up in wounds, mouth, lungs etc.

a reply to: Atsbhct
Wow.
If this stuff is proven to be causing cancer in athletes, a lot of school districts in my area are going to have a very expensive problem on their hands.
Most of the high schools around here have removed (at GREAT expense) the natural turf fields and replaced them with the rubber crumb fields. Not only do they require the purchase of special maintenance equipment, but they have to keep adding rubber. The fields are very expensive to install because of the necessity of having a drainfield installed under it to carry away rainwater.
I wonder how much it will cost to remove it all and put natural turf back in?

Oh well, it is just tax dollars.

a reply to: butcherguy


It definitely has the potential to be a billion dollar problem, you know? If enough evidence is uncovered, I think the route to go would be boycotting.

I've played on them for years and the benefit of keeping fit outweights some bs about rubber .
Maybe try the porn industry , I'm sure they have had experience with rubber .

Go Putin!

originally posted by: Leonidas
a reply to: VoidHawk

They are working with new tires, not tires with thousands of miles of road grime, chemicals etc. built up on them. Not to mention they are dealing with whole tires, not ground up bits of them that end up in wounds, mouth, lungs etc.

They take off old tires when they put on new ones and they also patch old tires. And I can tell you that you get lots of dust out of those tires.

originally posted by: VoidHawk
a reply to: Atsbhct

If they think tire rubber is the cause then they should see whether tire fitters have a high rate of cancer.

Tire fitters don't inhale ground up old rubber crumbs when they fit tires. The beads are wet with lubricant as the machine fits the tire on the rim.

To the thread: Gotta do something with those old tires, they been looking for stupid solutions forever. I remember when they used to make sandals out of them. They also used to mountain then up and then 'accidentally' catch them on fire, generating toxic clouds of burning tire smoke for weeks on end. Tire dump fires can't be extinguished.

I heard they were proposing using them ground up for adding into the layers of road bed beneath hiway surfaces?

a reply to: intrptr

I didn't think about the angle of ...well what else are they going to do with them? Thank you. Who really wants to play on rubber crumbs anyways? They're disgusting and get everywhere. In your hair and eyes and in the car/gym bag.

Who thought this up?

originally posted by: Atsbhct
a reply to: intrptr

Who thought this up?

'Environmentalists' in corporations. They have all kind of useless ideas like that. They use the stuff in children's playgrounds, too. Not crumb rubber, but a rubber 'mat' sort of, made from tires and old carpet foam.

yuck.

originally posted by: Atsbhct
Who thought this up?

Trial lawyers. There's gold in them there tires. NBC has a history of running "news segments" that are actually produced by Trial Lawyers going after the deep pockets of one industry or another.

I say rubber tires are killing all of us. Does anybody have any idea of how much rubber has been lost everywhere but there's no sign of it?? Along the road their might be some big chunks but what about all the wear from millions ans millions of tires going billions of miles every year. You would think there would be hills of rubber dust everywhere but???

a reply to: JIMC5499

Good catch! I wasn't aware of that at all. I'm trying to be unbiased because the evidence isn't there yet, so that's an interesting counterpoint.

The rubber is not causing cancer. But I would not be surprised if they are coating the rubber with something to keep down the dust or to keep it from clumping together.
Plywood has warning stickers not because the wood is dangerous but because of the chemical treatment used to make the plywood.

originally posted by: Leonidas
a reply to: VoidHawk

They are working with new tires, not tires with thousands of miles of road grime, chemicals etc. built up on them. Not to mention they are dealing with whole tires, not ground up bits of them that end up in wounds, mouth, lungs etc.

I'm pretty sure that during the recycling process the rubber is cleaned when it's shredded and prepared for re-use. The rubber probably would bind well if it was dirty.

This doesn't surprise me at all. Replacing natural grass with plastics and other artificial materials is insanity. Further down the line, I am certain people will be regretting using artificial surfaces for a variety of reasons. Well, except the people who make a profit from selling the surfaces.

ASTM ruled that grass is an unsafe playing surface. If you can't use grass then what can you use? Synthetic materials.

This is what depending on meddling bureaucracies gets us.

originally posted by: mikell
I say rubber tires are killing all of us. Does anybody have any idea of how much rubber has been lost everywhere but there's no sign of it?? Along the road their might be some big chunks but what about all the wear from millions ans millions of tires going billions of miles every year. You would think there would be hills of rubber dust everywhere but???

That was my immediate thought as well, the 'rubber dust' you're talking about has another name though, it's road grime, and it's a bitch to clean off of anything (micronized rubber, tar, and brake pad dust). I can only imagine how much road grime we end up ingesting or inhaling on a daily basis, especially if you live near a major highway.

Edit:
It is gradually being phased out, but Asbestos was a major component of Brake Pads for a long time, I wonder if a lot of these older tires being used to create artificial turf weren't laden with it.

a reply to: Atsbhct

Thank you for this. I'd have never imagined there was a health risk associated with these types of field surfaces. Wow, is there anything in this modern world that isn't going to ultimately kill us?