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"When Carshalton Athletic started using their 3G surface, spectators observed a strange dust when players tackled. Whenever their youngster returns from playing on a plastic pitch, parents find a multitude of tiny pellets in shirts, shorts and socks. They may look benign, but this grey substance is actually a concoction of waste products (mostly rubber tyres), with arsenic among the ingredients. These pitches are a bountiful enterprise for the petrochemical industry, but not so beneficial for boys and girls who ingest the toxins.
Lewis Maguire was a promising goalkeeper, and at age 16 he was invited to trials at Leeds United. However, during this exciting fortnight he became sick, and in..."

Read on: http://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/nial ... h-warning/

I played in a six a side league in Amsterdam for four months earlier this year, the whole complex had at least half a dozen of these pitches. They are fantastic, no matter how much it rained they never really got too slippy or waterlogged, and are about as close to real grass as you can get. Whenever we came off at full time, those black bits would be everywhere. All in our socks, boots, shorts, even in our hair. I'm surprised to hear that the Dutch are planning to get rid of them, at the complex we played at they had only recently installed the pitches, at a tremendous cost.