Taking a virtual adventure on Zillow or a similar home listing website can be a thrill. You get to see how people design their homes and backyards, and one Reddit user is pointing out a trend they've recently noticed with homes in their area of Australia.
"How hard is it to remove artificial turf and replace with real grass?" The user asked in the title, sharing in the body of the post that many townhomes for sale in their area featured fake grass.
"Maybe it's a phobia, but it makes my skin crawl. I hate those nasty, phony nature microplastic factories," the user wrote in the post in the r/AusRenovation forum.
Microplastics are a pertinent issue with artificial turf. When the sun hits the plastic, it causes it to degrade and releases tiny particles into waterways and soil, endangering both humans and wildlife. Much like cleaning up glitter, it's tough to wrangle in every single piece and remove it.
In addition, the turf also contains harmful chemicals that pose a risk to the human endocrine and immune system. One study even linked instances of a rare form of cancer to an artificially turfed baseball field in Pennsylvania.
Users in the comment section were quick to point out the issues they'd seen with artificial grass. "Artificial is gross if you have dogs too. Had it at an old place and it [sic] stinks after a while, even with trying to hose it in or occasionally wash it with detergent," one user noted. This upkeep requires a ton of resources, including water, which negates one of the reasons why people get fake grass in the first place.
Others suggested native plants and other species as an alternative to the fake grass rather than going with the "real" stuff. "All for the removal of fake grass, but have you considered natives and mulch as an alternative to real grass?" one user posted.
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