Protesters demand ban on artificial grass in public parks, which they say will poison kids with forever chemicals

This is some real grassroots protesting.Dozens of demonstrators flocked to City Hall Thursday to demand an end to the installation of artificial grass fields in city parks — which they say is slowly covering the five boroughs in toxic plastic.The crowd’s wrath was spurred by the “forever chemicals” from Astroturf-like surfaces they say are infecting the youngest New Yorkers — and the threat it poses to the final remaining native tree forest in Manhattan.“The last bit of Manhattan, they had to cover it with plastic.They could not leave it alone,” Washington Heights resident Mossimo Strino raged.Strino’s beloved Inwood Park is in the process of losing a lush and grassy waterfront soccer field for a synthetic one made of tufted nylon and coated silica sand.

The reconstruction was initially welcome by the neighborhood, Strino, 67, recalled — until residents found out it wouldn’t be made of dirt and grass.The roughly $8,700,000 project involves fixing drainage issues, though the fields lie on a flood plain.Adding microplastics to the flood-prone and natural waterfront area is especially distressing for Strino and neighbors.“Whenever it rains, that area’s going to get flooded and all the plastic that is being stomped on and broken down into microplastic will end up in the river as well.

Same thing is happening for all the pesticides and the disinfectants — the fungicides that they will be spraying and the plastic, that stuff will also be washed into the river,” Strino said.“Is our spirit worth nothing when we walk in these places?” There are at least another 221 synthetic turf fields in public parks, not counting spaces maintained by NYCHA or the Department of Education, a representative for the Parks Department confirmed.The representative could not say how many pounds of plastic this could equate to, but on average, an 80,000-square-foot field contains 40,000 pounds of plastic carpeting and 400,000 pounds of infill, according to Beyon...