SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/605094
24 SportsTurf | December 2015 www.sportsturfonline.com FACILITY & OPERATIONS in the United States is concentrated in the West. "California is ground zero for synthetic grass," he says, "followed by Arizona and Texas, then Nevada and Colorado. Those states account for 80 % of sales" (again, in the landscaping part of the business). And while he's all too aware of the competition from the natural turf industry, the success of his own has produced plenty of competition for SGW among distributors of artificial grass. When he started SGW 11 years ago, he says, "We were the only major distributor of synthetic grass in California. There are prob- ably 40 today. You can buy it at Costco, Lowe's, Home Depot, and of course that's bringing even more acceptance." Lanfranco is candid about his industry's dependence on the performance of installers, which are landscaping companies it doesn't own. SGW's marketing division offers workshops on proper installation. "Right now," Lanfranco says, "we sell to about 3,500 installers nationwide. That's an extremely important rela- tionship. We bring in landscapers and show them how to install synthetic grass and how to market it." The two industries' indictments of each other's products are long, detailed and not pretty. You can read them at their respec- tive trade associations' websites: the Synthetic Turf Council and Turfgrass Producers International. Lanfranco and Wagner can cite chapter and verse on that front. Among other charges, the natural turf industry points to the creation of "heat islands" wherever synthetic grass is applied and the necessity of using large quantities of water in an effort to cool it down. The artificial turf industry says natural grass uses an unsustainable amount of water, which isn't getting any less expensive, and is bad for the environment because of the chemi- cals used to fertilize it and kill pests and diseases. "You can have a beautiful green lawn without watering it," Lanfranco says. "We're proud of how much water has been saved." Nonsense, Wagner says, "although it's true that people tend to use too much water on their lawns. We've seen research that says 50 to 80% of the water that's put on grass isn't needed. It isn't just wasteful; it's bad for the grass." With the exception of its use as a substitute for natural turf in areas of extreme drought, a practice he believes will do more harm than good in the long run, and "maybe in some Northern states where the temperatures are bitter cold," Wagner maintains that artificial grass has no place in American landscapes. "I think the only reason synthetic turf is used at all is just a lack of education about the reality of it," he says. "Can you imag- ine the heat in a place like Los Angeles as natural grass is pulled back? Besides, they could achieve 25% water savings simply by switching to warm-season grasses." The artificial turf industry has a very effective lobby, Wagner says, "and they've spent millions to project themselves and their product as normal. It isn't normal, but it is hugely profitable." For his part, Lanfranco isn't concerned about the market for synthetic turf hitting a peak. He's worried about filling orders. And even without verifiable data to prove it, there's little doubt the demand for artificial grass is high and rising. ■ ST David Rountree is the editor of Total Landscape Care magazine, Tuscaloosa, AL. Many thanks to him for letting us reprint this article. Victor Lanfranco, Synthetic Grass Warehouse