RESEARCH ARTICLE Environmental–sanitary risk analysis procedure applied to artificial turf sports fields Barbara Ruffino & Silvia Fiore & Maria Chiara Zanetti Received: 30 July 2012 / Accepted: 30 November 2012 / Published online: 18 January 2013 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013 Abstract Owing to the extensive use of artificial turfs worldwide, over the past 10 years there has been much discussion about the possible health and environmental problems originating from styrene-butadiene recycled rub- ber. In this paper, the authors performed a Tier 2 environ- mental–sanitary risk analysis on five artificial turf sports fields located in the city of Turin (Italy) with the aid of RISC4 software. Two receptors (adult player and child player) and three routes of exposure (direct contact with crumb rubber, contact with rainwater soaking the rubber mat, inhalation of dusts and gases from the artificial turf fields) were considered in the conceptual model. For all the fields and for all the routes, the cumulative carcinogenic risk proved to be lower than 10 -6 and the cumulative non- carcinogenic risk lower than 1. The outdoor inhalation of dusts and gases was the main route of exposure for both carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic substances. The results given by the inhalation pathway were compared with those of a risk assessment carried out on citizens breathing gases and dusts from traffic emissions every day in Turin. For both classes of substances and for both receptors, the inhalation of atmospheric dusts and gases from vehicular traffic gave risk values of one order of magnitude higher than those due to playing soccer on an artificial field. Keywords Environmental–sanitary risk analysis . Artificial turfs . Inhalation . Dermal contact . Rainwater leaching Introduction In recent years, the use of artificial turfs, man-made surfaces manufactured from synthetic materials designed to look like natural grass, has become increasingly popular because fake grass is more resistant to heavy use, such as sports, than natural grass and requires no irrigation or trimming. An artificial turf is made of a mat of fibers filled with small rubber granules or a mixture of rubber granules and sand, to a depth of about 4 cm. The granules currently used in mat layers are made of rubber from exhaust tires (styrene- butadiene recycled rubber (SBRr)). Due to the manufac- turing process of tires, several compounds, like vulcanizing agents, accelerators, activators, anti-ozonants, antioxidants, retarders, plasticizers and extenders are present in crumb rubber, as well as various chemicals such as benzene, phtha- lates, and alkylphenols that may become bonded to tires during use (Denly et al. 2008). Owing to the extensive use of artificial turfs in Europe and North America, over the past 10 years there has been much discussion about the possible health and environmental problems originating from SBRr. In Europe, the debate arose on the back of a Norwegian study (Plesser and Lund 2004) that analyzed the total con- tent of As, Pb, Cd, Cu, Cr, Hg, PCBs, PAHs, phthalates, and phenols in three SBRr samples and in one presumably not recycled product made of ethylene propylene diene mono- mer and carried out leaching and degassing tests. Finally, an assessment of the potential risk was performed in a simpli- fied version, comparing the total content of environmentally harmful substances in the source materials to the permitted values for use in the most sensitive areas (gardens, kinder- gartens, schools). The authors of the study concluded that a Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues B. Ruffino (*) : S. Fiore : M. C. Zanetti DIATI–Department of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 10129 Torino, Italy e-mail: barbara.ruffino@polito.it S. Fiore e-mail: silvia.fiore@polito.it M. C. Zanetti e-mail: mariachiara.zanetti@polito.it Environ Sci Pollut Res (2013) 20:4980–4992 DOI 10.1007/s11356-012-1390-2