Becoming widespread in the United States has been artificial turfor plastic grass. The U.S government says 12,000 artificial turf fields now exist in the country and 1,200are being installed annually. The guests on the program are Kyla Bennett, PhD and JD, director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER); Kathleen Michels, PhD, a neuroscientist formerly with the National Institutes of Health and a board member of Safe Healthy Playing Fields; and Anna Grossman of Sustainable Montclair, a grassroots coalition in that New Jersey community. “The things that are wrong with it are plentiful,” says Dr. Bennett. She notes that artificial turf contains per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances known as PFAS, considered “forever chemicals" with many linked to cancer. She relates how it emits carbon dioxide and methane, cannot be recycled, and causes “worse injuries for the athletes on them than natural grass.”She says the U.S. government “has not been doing what it should be doing” about artificial turf but that states and communities are taking action. Dr. Michels details the issues of heat, injury, toxicity, disposal and“shedding of microcoplastics” by artificial turf. She speaks of artificial turf fields becoming extremely hot—“hotter than asphalt.” And, she details how the claimis false that the cost of artificial turf fields is less than that of real grass fields. Anna Grossman tells of the challenges to artificial turf fields in “progressive, environmentally conscious Montclair” and how the claims of them being less costly than natural grass fields is “not the case.” The installation of artificial turf, she says, is “the opposite of what you should be doing in 2024.”