This grass is greener?
September 7th, 2005
Wednesday evening, The Daily Show featured a segment on Florida man Greg Cooper, who installed a plastic lawn at his St. Petersburg home.
An interesting proposition. The argument could be made that plastic lawns save water and don’t require pesticides or fertilizer (which is conventionally derived from petroleum). Without the need for fertilizer, the product also prevents over fertilization, a cause of eutrophication.
Popularity: 2% [?]
September 8th, 2005 at 12:30 am
...gotcha! let’s take another look…
: )
St. Petersburg gets approx. 52” of rain annually, which is a ton of rain. To put this in perspective, a quick search came up with Florida having the 6th highest annual rainfall in the US. Also, more plastics, decreased infiltration (the soaking in) of water resulting in increased run-off, reduced habitat, and the replacement of o2 producing photosynthesis…
What else can you think of?
September 8th, 2005 at 12:51 am
I could probably think of a few concerns.
First off, to get the real answer, you’d have to know how much energy and chemicals it takes to make a plastic lawn versus a grass one as well as the cost of demanufacturing this non-biodegradeable fake lawn. (The product is good for only 5 years? What do you do after that!?)
Next, the plastic product claims to be better because it doesn’t need mowing, care, water, or pesticides/fertilizers. But wouldn’t an easier way to care for the lawn be using organic fertilizer? And what about that nice neighborhood boy that’s now out of business until the snow falls again?
And that’s not even mentioning the expense difference: a cool $10-15,000 for the faux-fir.
More sustainable? Probably not.
Reason for the city of St. Petersburg to be spending precious time and energy on legislature prohibiting turf lawns from being legal? Probably not.
Daily Show right on? Definetly.
September 8th, 2005 at 1:09 pm
I live in a heavily wooded sub on an incline….i can see using little 20 square foot contemporory cut little patches lined with white or black rock here and there where it is impossible to grow and maintain grass….if it were CHEAPER…..I think it would look nice and definitely different.
September 8th, 2005 at 3:52 pm
it certainly is impressive that it can be done and look so realistic.
I once helped put together a rock opera where the director wanted to fill the seating area with sod instead of chairs. After the fire marshal came to yell at us, we had to settle for astroturf but most people couldn’t tell it wasn’t real!
September 9th, 2005 at 9:42 pm
I’d like to see a life-cycle cost analysis of the plastic grass, though. C02 is generated by the plastic and it may release dioxins over its life.
I could understand having this in California, assuming water is scarcer there.
September 13th, 2005 at 7:49 pm
There was a misprint in the paper. The turf actually lasts 20 to 25 years. Its payback time is five years for an average size lawn.