The city that never sleeps has a new bill promoting the return of natural grass in municipal parks. New York City Councilman Christopher Marte submitted the “Touch Grass” bill recently at a New York City town hall meeting. Councilmember Marte, surrounded by fellow councilmembers, advocacy organizations and a coalition of residents, announced the new Bill on the steps of City Hall.
Numerous organizations joined in supporting the bill, including New York Communities for Change, East River Park Action, Save Inwood Hill Park, National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and Beyond Plastics.
The “Touch Grass” bill seeks to halt all New York City Parks’ use of artificial, synthetic turf in parks, and instead grow natural grass. At the announcement of the bill, Councilmembers from both the Upper West Side and Upper East Side voiced agreement with their colleague.
“Our parks should be green, healthy, and fighting climate change,” Councilor Marte said.
“This bill is long overdue,” said Marte, getting a roar of approval from the crowd on hand. “We’ve been seeing plastics take over our whole life.”
New York District 5 Councilmember Julie Menin said that data now shows that synthetic fields are unsafe and that not changing them back to grass would be “shameful.” Menin explained, “We know that this turf causes cancer. It has really negative health consequences, so it is high time to take on this challenge.”
Recently, University of New Mexico Health Sciences researchers reported that microplastics are found inside human brains and are present in “much higher concentrations than in other organs.” Researchers found that plastic accumulates in the human brain and has increased by 50% over the past eight years.
In addition, the bill says that the artificial turf traps heat during the summer, meaning that the surface temperatures on the synthetic fields can be up to 60 percent higher than the air temperature. A natural grass field, in contrast, will never go over 100 degrees even on the hottest days in the city.
“We have this wonderful CO2 subtractor from the atmosphere, which is real grass,” Massimo Strino of Save Inwood Park said. “We’re removing it and replacing it with plastic, which does not do that. They tell us that they’re easier to maintain. . . It saves money for the city, but they don’t consider how much it will cost to dispose of it, that plastic is not recyclable.”
Councilmember Marte’s district has numerous synthetic fields, including at several East River Park athletic fields and Pier 42, as well as the Murry Bergtraum High School athletic field.
Numerous towns and cities in the United States have bought into the trend to prohibit artificial turf. Some of the US places now prohibiting synthetic materials on the ground include Boston, which banned PFAS-containing artificial turf in 2022; Colorado, which bans any use of artificial turf on government property; and Millbrae, California, which passed a public and private ban of plastic grass in 2023. In 2023 California Governor Gavin Newsom updated a state law from 2015 that prohibits cities and counties from “banning” artificial turf on residential properties to allow drought-tolerant living plants and lawns while authorizing localities to ban synthetic grass if they so choose.
