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I think fake grass looks absolutely shit and I don't like the environmental impact but I don't think that banning it is the solution.
Let's see some incentives for people that keep their gardens wildlife and eco friendly like a council tax discount.
If we are going to ban petrol and diesel cars, and oil and gas boilers, we can certainly ban fake grass.
There's some fake grass that looks absolutely real. It's just a bit pricier than most people would be willing to pay.
I'm not advocating for it, just putting it out there.
I am curious as to why you think banning it isn't a solution? Seems like a very obvious solution to me.
I just don't like the idea of banning everything I don't personally agree with.
I'd be the first to object if someone else wanted something I like banned just because they think it's shit.
Tax the crap out of it, make it uneconomical for those who don't need it.
“Only rich people should have fake grass” - you
Rich people have no need for fake grass. There's plenty of acres to take the dog piss and shit and Jeeves will take care of the gardening.
Fake grass is for people that for some reason think it's better for dog mess and for people that can't be bothered to do a bit of gardening. It's clearly not for the look because no one has ever said "wow, that fake grass looks even better than the real thing!"
What's the environmental impact of fake grass? Isn't it better than real grass because it doesn't need water or pesticides? (I don't have a grass yard or lawn so I don't know what upkeep a fake one entails. My neighbor has one in their backyard, which basically replaced dirt with a few patches of grass from the prior owner. We have concrete from our prior owner. )
There are a lot of environmental impacts created by far grass. For a start, they create substantial damage to local biodiversity. Real grass is home to many kinds of insects and other animals, as is the the soil beneath it. Other animals such as birds rely on those insects for food. Fake grass is a habitat and food source for nothing, and damages the soil beneath it.
Healthy plant covered soil is also a natural carbon sink, so the mere existence of fake grass contributes to CO2 buildup. The production and installation of fake grass is also carbon intensive.
Fake grass eventually degrades and requires replacement, and despite manufacture claims, recycling it is difficult and often practically impossible. The degradation of fake grass is also a source of microplastic pollution, which can be carried on the air or leach into the soil, and eventually reach water sources.
That's just a brief summary, there's plenty of more comprehensive information available online. The stuff is quite frankly another disaster for the environment waiting to happen. A ban can't come soon enough. There are plenty of better options for those that need an alternative to natural grass.
This may be why my neighbors went with fake grass. They had the soil tested and it had a high percentage of lead. (They have a young child who was still crawling at that time.) They had to remove some of the top layer, IIRC, and put down some kind of protective membrane and then did fake grass on top. So this may depend on where you live. We have concrete in our backyard and bought playfalls (padded tiles that you sometimes see in playgrounds) to place under our playset. Luckily we did not have to deal with lead.
I went with a rocky garden instead of fake grass because the occupant of the house had a grass allergy. Why pretend and fill the garden with nasty plastic.
You don't have to put pesticides on your grass you know you can just leave it.
It gets watered by the rain, and the rain falls on it regardless of if it's real or fake or concrete. So it isn't a waste.
Anyway it allows for drainage. One of the reasons we get so much flooding nowadays is because we've concreted over everything.
Plastic grass supports little in the way of biodiversity and will constantly shed microplastics. Actual grass also allows the absorption of rain water into the ground below, whereas fake grass does not. This can contribute to localised flooding, and causes problems for replenishment of aquifers. All in all its awful stuff and the sooner it's banned the better IMO.
A lawn needs neither of these things, or if you choose just to have plants instead (which we did in our small garden) then that needs neither water nor pesticides. Occasionally I might pull by hand some straggly stuff, or use a small electric strimmer to tidy things up (e.g. the garden path when stuff starts growing between the paving).
Unlike artificial grass, and even though my garden is small, this spring I had two birds nesting, I see quite a lot of bees and butterflies, and I just let the ants get on with doing their business. Pesticides and herbicides are never used. If there's a plant I don't want growing somewhere I can pull it up manually. There's no need for the area to be super manicured.
The environmental impact of actual grass that you keep cut is likely far worse. Preferably, grass lawns are banned generally. The expectation of keeping short grass maintained should die.
So you'd rather concrete jungle over lawns? I feel like if you banned grass lawns that's what you'd get.
That's a stupid false dichotomy. Why would those be the only options. Clover is a good low growing grass substitute. You can also grow native pants in most of the space so cutting isn't required. There are many options that aren't grass lawns that require a ton of maintenance.
You think if you told people they all had to get rid of their grass lawns heaps of them wouldn't just replace them with a load of concrete if they didn't want the maintenance? Enough people do it already without being forced to by a ban.
Sure, some would if that were the rule. How about we ban both. The option isn't binary.
Good luck with banning either. Sounds like it'd be a popular policy.
We're in a thread about astro turfing lawns, so when you paraphrase "a kept lawn is likely worse for the environment", what you are implying is that astroturfing a lawn is better for the environment than a real one. Which I think is a very bold statement to make.
That aside I do like the idea of things like clover lawns, but is that going to appeal to the sort of person that astroturfs their lawn because "muh dog shit and piss" or because they can't be bothered to get the lawnmower out?
Astroturf does not require mowing.
You can use an electric mower and power it with solar and wind
Does grass not count as a native plant?
It is. The grasses we use for our gardens are generally native, well unless you got some exotic grass for some weird reason.
Also, let the weeds grow! Your perfectly manicured garden looks weird and monocultures are bad!
The American style super manicured laws with sprinklers and all maybe, but your average home lawn that gets cut on average once a month and is the home to all sorts of wild life no way.
Natural grass is a habitat and food source for many insects and small animals, and healthy plant covered soil is a natural carbon sink. Fake grass provides none of that, while creating substantial CO2 emissions in production and installation, and damaging local biodiversity.