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  Straits Times Forum 13 Jan 07
Former PE teacher all for artificial turf
Letter from Steffen Toh Hai Chew

Straits Times Forum 13 Jan 07
Abrasive turf left bruises on son's legs and torso
Letter from Hwang Liang Keng

Straits Times Forum 11 Jan 07
Rethink plan for artificial turf in schools
Letter from Patrick Tan Siong Kuan

Straits Times Forum 9 Jan 07
Plastic grass? You can't be serious, MOE!
Letter from Dr Lee Siew Peng

Straits Times Forum 9 Jan 07
Synthetic football fields at what cost environmentally?
Letter from Tan Choon Ming

Straits Times Forum 5 Jan 07
Don't rob our children of naturally green grass fields by going synthetic
Letter from Chen Bin

HOW far will we take our kids away from what is natural? What else will we pamper them with?

These questions came to my mind after reading the article, 'Goodbye muddy pitches, hello synthetic turf' (ST, Dec 30).

In a small country with metropolitan living, younger generations have been moved further and further from nature. The vast majority of children today do not have the experience of catching fish from langkang or cicadas from trees. Even free-range chickens are a surprise to many children.

Having one's body covered in mud is part of the fun of playing an intense game with schoolmates. Yes, there will be parents who are concerned about hygiene and health. But how many children can totally avoid a body covered in mud all their life? After all, all male children will go to the Singapore Armed Forces and have many muddy days.

It is possible more children may be drawn to the field because synthetic turf is cleaner.

I wonder if this is the right value to instil in the younger generation. With that thinking, we may soon have to provide air-conditioned fields.

The cycle of growing and cutting grass is a subconscious reminder to students of the constant change of nature. Now we will give them ever green but fake grass to look at every day. A fake grass pitch is surely less inspiring.

Why should we rob our kids of more nature?

In a tropical climate, grass fields are relatively easy and cheap to maintain. I am not sure if the authorities have calculated the cost of maintaining grass fields versus the $40 million earmarked to install synthetic ones?

It is true that synthetic fields will require less maintenance and long-term running costs may be lower.

But there is another economic value with grass fields: They provide continued employment to some people. Schools can hire senior citizens to maintain the fields. With $40 million, they can provide more than 3,000 man-years of employment on a monthly wage of $1,000 - 41 years of employment for 80 gardeners!

Please let our school fields continue to be naturally green.

Straits Times Forum 9 Jan 07
Plastic grass? You can't be serious, MOE!
Letter from Dr Lee Siew Peng

As John McEnroe once said, 'You cannot be serious!' Exactly my sentiment with regard to the article, 'Goodbye muddy pitches, hello synthetic turf' (ST, Dec 30).

Amidst Straits Times columnists (Janadas Devan: 'Time to wake up to global warming', Jan 5; Ho Hua Chew: 'Don't neglect the green, green grass of home', Jan 5) writing about the effects of global warming and getting more in touch with nature, the Ministry of Education is attempting to make one or more (foreign) producers of plastic grass very, very rich indeed.

Wake up, sanitized Singapore! Dirt is good. The English have a saying: You must eat a peck of dirt before you die. I believe there is a Hokkien equivalent: 'dirty eat, dirty grow'. For what it's worth, the hygiene hypothesis postulates that our quest for utter cleanliness has played a part in the rise of asthma and allergic reactions amongst young children.

Plastic is bad, especially for the environment. How do you clean this plastic grass? Detergent and bleach have been suggested. These require precious water to wash it away, poisoning the ground. How do you dispose of this grass at the end of its life (15 years at best estimate)? Burning plastic releases toxic dioxins into the air.

The economic/maintenance argument is myopic and I agree with Chen Bin ('Don't rob our children of naturally green grass fields by going synthetic', ST Online Forum, Jan 5). Take the UK economy where the manufacturing sector has shrunk dramatically in the last decade and thousands are still left without jobs because they do not have the wherewithal to do the 'knowledge' jobs that are available. In the UK welfare state, people do not starve. But while their bodies are well-fed, their souls are famished. Joblessness (just as an excess of material goods) leads to spiritual emptiness, which might go some way in explaining the rise in anti-social behaviour. People have nothing (else) to aim for.

Many in colder and dryer climes would envy our weather that gives us such verdant grass growth. Would the Inuit buy a snow-making machine? Have we Singaporeans gone barking mad?

Is the grass really greener on the other side? If it's synthetic grass, then from the health, economic/social and environmental perspectives, the answer is a definitive 'no'. After the next heavy rain, smell the sweet smell of wet grass that plastic grass does not give. It is good for the soul.

Straits Times Forum 9 Jan 07
Synthetic football fields at what cost environmentally?
Letter from Tan Choon Ming

I am concerned with plans by the Ministry of Education to install synthetic fields in our schools.

In his letter, 'Don't rob our children of naturally green grass fields by going synthetic', ST Online Forum, Jan 5, Mr Chen Bin is right to worry about the negative influences that artificial grass will have on our children's upbringing.

In urban Singapore, every little opportunity to expose the young ones to natural surroundings is precious.

Substituting living grass with artificial ones at 80 football fields may be a modest initial undertaking given that we will still have many more other fields that contain real grass. And at approximately $50 per square metre of plastic grass, the pricing is also attractive. Long-term maintenance cost is minimised as we forego the continuous hassles of filling up barren patches and eliminating drainage nuisances created by uneven soil textures and surfaces.

But the move towards synthetic fields is a setback especially at a time when the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) is rewarding the building of environment-friendly energy efficient premises. Besides the BCA, the Housing and Development Board is also making progress at installing rooftop greenery on public flats to moderate the buildings' heating effect.

It appears that high usage causes existing school fields to turn muddy, which render them unusable, and therefore deprive children the time to play field sports during physical education lessons.

So, getting muddied is one of the deciding factors to go artificial.

Thinking outside the classroom, have other options been explored before hard engineering is employed to remedy a muddy environmental problem?

In the United States, in part to solve a separate environmental problem, the Americans devised a whole new soil amendment technique that they claim facilitates drainage and protect plant roots from damage due to trampling.

Faced with mountains of disused car tyres, one US company shreds the rubber in the tyre into tiny rubber granules. The recycled rubber granules are mixed with soil and marketed as an enhanced product. Professional sports stadiums took to it.

The recycling effort drew criticisms, no less from environmentalists. Incorporating and dispersing man-made artefacts, which in this case is vulcanised ('sulphurised' - interlocking sulphur with rubber molecules) rubber, into soil very clearly contaminates an otherwise natural medium.

However, if required to weigh between a 100 per cent plastic grass field and a tweaked field that supports real grass, I will opt for the latter.

In the current Singapore context, waste tyres are delivered by the truckload to incineration plants every day. Tyre-derived rubber granules are in no short supply.

Alas, our sun baked tropical soil suffers from a natural low nutrient content. By mixing compost in the form of decomposed wood chips into the soil, the additional organic material not only improves soil structure, it will also aid in the growth of a more verdant grass field.

Our tree-lined roads generate truckloads of tree trimmings everyday. Compost derived from these branches can very fittingly find demand in school fields.

Instead of contending with dead plastic grass, through the recycling of the country's waste materials, children can continue to play on living growing grass.

More than just living out its sports utility functions, grass also serves to regulate atmospheric gas composition through photosynthesis. Grass and soil perform physical cleansing functions as well. Dust caught on leave surfaces are washed into the soil by rain and gets trapped there.

In the end, individual school decides whether or not it should go artificial. If after weighing all costs, schools still choose to do without their grass and soil, please make it a point to take another step by mitigating the environmental costs due to the loss of the grass field, which constitutes an ecologically productive surface.

The school can do that by growing replacement grass on otherwise barren areas inside the school compound. Putting carpet grass on rooftops is an option.

The aim is for the school, as an entity by itself, to retain that same amount of green productive surface area as was available before the synthetic field development.

More cars and people are added to this Earth everyday. And yet, everyday, ever more vegetation cover is lost to development. Where prevention is not workable, we then try to mitigate.

Arguably again, 80 football fields of productive grass is next to nothing when compared to the world's deforestation rate.

However, if a teacher is able to inform his charges what the school has done to purposefully minimise its environmental footprint, this action will positively change the student's global outlook for a more sustainable future.

Straits Times Forum 11 Jan 07
Rethink plan for artificial turf in schools
Letter from Patrick Tan Siong Kuan

ABOUT three years ago, I wrote to the Forum to highlight that many schools prohibited their students from playing in the school field outside of Physical Education lessons ('Pray, let the children play'; ST, July 8, 2004 ).

In several schools, the fields were fenced and locked most of the time. The schools' excuses for keeping the fields locked were, firstly, to prevent the children from hurting themselves; secondly, teachers' dislike of sweaty and muddied students in class and, thirdly, school fields being very expensive to maintain.

After my letter appeared, there was a strong push to let children play. Hence, my surprise when I learnt of the Ministry of Education's plans to replace the fields with artificial turf.

While this may please both parents and the ministry, it comes at a cost. Besides the environmental cost, there is the developmental cost to our kids.

Why the paranoia about kids getting hurt while playing? That is part and parcel of growing up. If the worry is about parents complaining, then get all parents to sign a letter of indemnity before they enrol their kids in the school. Also, make personal accident insurance compulsory.

I remember my national-service days when the platoon sergeant made us crawl through muddy water as part of a training exercise. Our bodies, including our faces, were caked in mud. For those of us that grew up playing football in muddy fields, this was no big deal.

I dread the day when our NS boys are so afraid of getting muddied that they tiptoe around puddles of water because they grew up in an environment where they could not get hurt or muddied.

I send my kids to school not just to achieve good grades. I send them to school so that they can receive a broad education and be prepared to face the challenges of life.

If cost of maintaining the fields is the primary concern, get the children involved in replanting the grass. Working in the fields brings lots of benefits and valuable life lessons - they learn to use their hands, they learn about the environment and the laws of nature (you reap what you sow and you can't shortchange nature) and they end up tougher.

I appeal to the ministry to drop its plan to replace fields with artificial turf. The hidden costs outweigh any savings on maintenance.

Straits Times Forum 13 Jan 07
Former PE teacher all for artificial turf
Letter from Steffen Toh Hai Chew

IN THE letter, 'Rethink plan for artificial turf in schools' (ST, Jan 11), Mr Patrick Tan lamented the decision to replace the natural turf of school fields with artificial turf, arguing that the former helps build character.

As a former Physical Education teacher, I was delighted with the Ministry of Education (MOE)'s decision and puzzled by Mr Tan's rationale for objecting to it. I cannot agree with him that the costs will outweigh the benefits.

I still remember less than fondly the sorry state of the school field at different times of the year. In the dry season, there would be stony patches so hard that if one fell, it would cut open skin immediately. These patches would turn into mud pits whenever there was a bout of wet weather or when the monsoon season started, making the field virtually unusable, causing many PE teachers to resort to conducting lessons on basketball courts or in the parade square.

For some older schools, the space crunch could get really bad. On occasion, I had to conduct lessons along a corridor outside the science laboratory.

Artificial-turf fields would ensure that PE lessons get disrupted less often, as well as allow many more students to participate more meaningfully. Furthermore, the school field is also used for Trim-and-Fit, CCA and enrichment activities, as well as being a venue for large-scale school events, such as carnivals and celebrations, as the school hall or parade square is often not large enough to hold the entire school population.

As for building character through getting wet and muddy, surely there are enough external facilities such as the various MOE adventure centres and campsites, which are custom-built for these purposes.

There are ample opportunities, in the form of various PE, CCA and leadership camps from primary school through to junior college, for students to engage in experiential learning and pick up the 'valuable life lessons' Mr Tan is concerned about.

I see MOE's decision as a step in the right direction to raise the standards of Singapore schools and the holistic education they provide. We do not make students walk to school, or prepare reports using typewriters, so why insist that they wade around on muddy fields, now that there is an alternative?

This is progress, and we should embrace it the same way we embrace the other trappings of the modern society we live in.

Straits Times Forum 13 Jan 07
Abrasive turf left bruises on son's legs and torso
Letter from Hwang Liang Keng

I CONCUR with Mr Patrick Tan ('Rethink plan for artificial turf in schools'; ST, Jan 11) that the Ministry of Education should give further thought to the plan to use artificial turf.

Last year, my son came home from a game of soccer with bruises on his legs and torso. I thought that the injuries were due to a rough game but I was told that they were caused by abrasive artificial turf.

Furthermore, I noticed dye on his jersey. His boots had green fibres that came off the turf.

Unless there is a new type of artificial turf that is non-abrasive and does not disintegrate so easily, I would not advise the use of such turf. We cannot be sure that such artificial turf would not contain toxins that could cause illnesses.

The ministry should put safety over aesthetics. Hwang Liang Keng
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