Spridningen av gummigranulat från konstgräsplaner. - En undersökning av Aggarpsvallen i Svedala kommun

The use of artificial football fields has increased drastically in Sweden since a few years back. Moreover, approximately hundred new fields are created each year. The infill material, consisting of rubber granulate made of old tires, are classified as the second largest source of micro-plastic dispersion to the oceans. This study aims to investigate the spread of the rubber granulate from two artificial football fields in the county Svedala in Sweden. In order to get an estimate of the amount of granulates, a sediment sampling of the adjacent watercourse and grass slope was implemented. This study showed that there is approximately 0.5 ton granulate in the watercourse and 0.6 ton in the grass slope, which was estimated to have been there for these five years the fields have existed. Based on an interview with the football fields maintenance staff, approximately 0.78 ton granulate per 100 football players have been spread from the fields within five years. These results show a rough estimation of the total spread of around 1.88 ton granulate from the football fields since 2012 to 2017. Still, this is just a small amount of granulates added to the fields under these five years, which is between 25-35 ton on each (5-7 ton/year). Concerning the water treatment plant in Svedala, they could not see any rubber granulate in their purification processes. However, since rubber granulate are so small, and they did not have any existing methods to deal with micro- plastics, this is not ensured. This highlights that there is a certain spread of rubber granulate from the football fields, and that there are not enough measures to prevent this according to this study. It also highlights that there are too few purification methods in the treatment plan to cleanse the water from eventual micro-plastics dispersal.