Turf Products LLC history

But the real change began in 1952 in Levittown, Long Island with a “cookie cutter” suburban community.

The idea came from the Educational Facilities Laboratory, a nonprofit corporation established by the Ford Foundation in 1958 to help schools modernize and create environments that supported learning.

In 1964, the organization installed a synthetic turf referred to as “Chemgrass” at Moses Brown School in Providence, Rhode Island.

The first artificial sports turf was used in the Houston Astrodome, a fully enclosed stadium completed in 1965.

On July 25, 1967, a patent was issued for artificial turf by the United States Patent and Trademark Office and synthetic turf was officially “born.”

1969: Franklin Field, the gridiron stadium of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, switched from grass to artificial turf.

Places like Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium, Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium and Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium followed the Astroturf trend throughout the 1970’s.

A 1973 study commissioned by the NFL from the Stanford Research Institute found no significant difference in the total number of injuries that occurred on synthetic turf compared with natural grass.

By 1984, 17 out of 28 National Football League (NFL) teams were playing on artificial turf.

By the early 1990’s many of the North American Football associations had converted back to natural grass playing fields.

Another study, published in 1992, concluded that linemen were more likely to suffer knee sprains during passing plays on AstroTurf than on grass.

Although second generation turf eventually proved to be acceptable for sports like field hockey, it was less suitable for sports like soccer as the playing characteristics and the actual ball behavior did not match the capabilities of natural grass. It was not until 1996 that a synthetic turf soccer field proved to be truly suitable for the sport.

Early 2000’s: New artificial playing surfaces using sand and/or rubber infill were developed.

2001: FIFA launches its FIFA Quality Concept for Synthetic fields

2005–06: UEFA announced that approved artificial surfaces were permitted in their competitions

Since 2007 more than a dozen towns in Massachusetts have voted against installing artificial-turf fields.

In 2009 the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) field-tested methods for monitoring particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, and metals at synthetic-turf fields and playgrounds and concluded that concentrations of these materials were below levels of concern.

In October 2013 NBC News aired an investigative report that sparked public concerns about the health risks of crumb rubber.

Today only two major-league ballparks have artificial turf: Tampa’s Tropicana Field and Toronto’s Rogers Centre, where owners of the Toronto Blue Jays hope to convert to grass by 2018.

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