An 800+ page report on the safety of tire crumb field surfaces was inconclusive. Report does not declare TC safe or dangerous. The report by two federal agencies is the first of two on TC synthetic fields. We’ll have to wait for Part 2 for a definitive answer whether a surface made of recycled tires is safe for you and your children.
Writing for July 27 Forbes, Bob Cook said, “The report is the first step in assessing safety covering what chemical substances may be in the fields, and some assessment of level of exposure. Part two will get to specifics on how they interact with humans, and any risks. The federal report notes that research is ‘inconclusive’ on the safety of crumb-rubber fields. While there is always reason to believe the Trump EPA is hostile to anything that might been seen as environmentally beneficial, politics doesn’t appear to be (not yet, anyway) the driving factor in the study, which began during the Obama administration in 2016.”
The impetus for the study came as lawmakers pressured federal agencies to act after reports of players on crumb-rubber fields getting cancer at a high rate, and a 2015 Yale University study finding that fields sampled contained 96 chemicals (20 percent were considered probable carcinogens and 40 percent irritants that could cause problems for players).
Bob Conroy, CSN Tire Crumb Archive