In the coming days, Pasadena’s Municipal Services Committee will decide whether two city athletic fields should remain covered in artificial turf or be restored to natural grass.
At first glance, the issue may sound like a simple maintenance decision- a “replacement” of aging playing fields. But let’s be honest about what is really being proposed.
Replacing artificial turf with new artificial turf is not maintenance. It is a brand-new investment in a product that is becoming increasingly controversial because of its potential impacts on human health, the environment, and public finances.
Pasadena has an opportunity to make the right choice.
It should choose living grass.
Across the country, communities are reconsidering artificial turf as new research continues to raise troubling questions. Physicians, environmental scientists, school districts, and public health advocates have expressed growing concern about the materials used in synthetic fields. Emerging studies suggest possible links between chemicals found in artificial turf and a variety of health problems, including endocrine disruption and certain cancers. While research continues, one thing is already clear: when children’s health is involved, uncertainty should lead us toward caution, not toward doubling down on plastic playing fields.
The concerns do not stop there.
Professional athletes have been sounding the alarm for years. Even the NFL Players Association has acknowledged that injury rates are significantly higher on artificial turf than on natural grass. Multiple studies have found substantially greater rates of non-contact injuries, including knee injuries, foot injuries, and ligament tears, on synthetic surfaces.
If the world’s best-conditioned athletes are getting hurt more often on artificial turf, why would we knowingly place Pasadena’s children on the same surface? If they were that great, why don’t we see any of the World Cup games played on them? FIFA strictly mandates natural grass for World Cup matches. While the 2026 surfaces are technically a “hybrid” system, they still consist of mostly natural grass (roughly 95%) that is merely stitched with synthetic fibers to enhance durability and stability.
Then there is the environmental cost.
Artificial turf is fundamentally incompatible with Pasadena’s own climate goals.
Our city has spent years developing Climate Action Plans, planting trees, reducing urban heat, and investing in climate resilience. Artificial turf undermines every one of those efforts.
Unlike living grass, synthetic fields absorb and retain enormous amounts of heat. On hot Southern California afternoons, their surface temperatures can become dangerously high, far hotter than natural grass, making parks uncomfortable and sometimes unsafe during the very months children most want to play outside. Last summer I took surface temperatures at Robinson field of 170 degrees Fahrenheit.
That concern has become even more urgent following the Eaton Fire.
Our community lost thousands of mature trees that once helped cool neighborhoods naturally. Residents throughout Pasadena and Altadena are already experiencing hotter summers because so much shade has disappeared. The last thing we should be doing is replacing living landscapes with acres of petroleum-based plastic that further intensify the urban heat island effect.
Artificial turf also sheds microplastics every single day, as plastic blades of grass and rubber infill continuously break down from weather, wear, and foot traffic. This is extensively documented in peer-reviewed environmental literature and by health organizations.
Those tiny plastic particles wash into storm drains, streams, and the Arroyo, contaminate soil, enter wildlife habitat, and ultimately find their way into our food and water. Every synthetic field becomes a long-term source of plastic pollution.
Then comes the end of its life.
Artificial turf is often marketed as recyclable. In reality, most worn-out fields are not recycled in any meaningful way. After eight to ten years, thousands of pounds of plastic carpet, rubber and “natural” infill, backing materials, and adhesives are typically hauled to landfills.
That is hardly consistent with Pasadena’s commitment to sustainability.
Nor is artificial turf the financial bargain its advocates often claim.
Supporters frequently highlight reduced watering costs while overlooking the full cost of ownership. Synthetic fields require specialized maintenance, grooming, sanitation, repairs, cooling treatments during heat events, and ultimately complete replacement. Once disposal and replacement costs are included, artificial turf proves more expensive than well-managed natural grass over the life of the field. When considering the added costs of the health dangers it causes, artificial turf fields are much more costly.
Taxpayers deserve the complete picture- not just the sales pitch.
Some city officials have suggested that site limitations, including inadequate sunlight, make natural grass difficult to maintain. Those are legitimate challenges.
But difficult is not the same as impossible.
If lighting is the problem, let’s improve lighting. If drainage is inadequate, let’s fix drainage. If durability is the concern, let’s invest in better turf management, drought-tolerant grass species, improved irrigation technologies, regenerative soil practices, rotational field schedules, and other natural innovations already being used successfully across the country.
Pasadena is home to extraordinary engineers, landscape architects, environmental professionals, parks experts, and community advocates. Surely a city that prides itself on innovation can design athletic fields that are both durable and environmentally responsible- without carpeting them in plastic.
This debate is ultimately about more than playing fields.
It is about the kind of city we want Pasadena to become.
Do we continue investing in products that generate plastic waste, contribute to rising temperatures, increase pollution, and raise legitimate concerns about public health?
Or do we invest in natural systems that cool our neighborhoods, absorb carbon, protect our waterways, and provide children with healthier places to play?
Years from now, residents may ask whether we knew the risks associated with artificial turf. They may ask whether we understood its contribution to heat, pollution, landfill waste, and increased injury rates.
The answer will be yes.
We know enough today to choose differently.
The Municipal Services Committee has an opportunity to demonstrate that Pasadena’s commitment to sustainability is more than words in a Climate Action Plan. It is a commitment reflected in the decisions we make, the parks we build, and the legacy we leave our children.
The committee should reject the proposal to keep these two fields artificial and instead direct staff to pursue natural grass and nature-based solutions.
Our children deserve fields that support their health.
Our neighborhoods deserve landscapes that cool instead of cook.
Our taxpayers deserve investments that do not become tomorrow’s landfill.
And Pasadena deserves parks that are alive, not made of plastic.
Suzanne York is a member of Pasadena’s Environmental Advisory Commission (EAC) , that formally recommended against this turf expenditure, and a retired Pasadena Unified School District teacher. She is stating her own personal position and not speaking for the Commission
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