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Grass bouncing back with rubber Crumbs from old tires offer sufficient grounds for protection from the masses who tread through Point State Park Friday, July 09, 1999 By David Berger, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The grass at Point State Park is getting some relief from all the trampling by summertime crowds. Oddly enough, the relief is coming from tires.
A substance called Crown III crumb rubber, which is made by grinding up old tires, is being spread over 37,000 square feet of grass in the park.
The rubber fragments will protect the grass from wear and tear that comes with large events such as the Three Rivers Regatta and Three Rivers Arts Festival. It does so by protecting the crown of the grass -- the part of a blade that is just above the soil, explained Daniel J. Eichenlaub, representative of AgRecycle Inc.
The rubber creates a buffer that prevents the crown from bending and breaking under the pounding of park visitors' feet. It will also serve as extra protection for the grass during dry weather, Eichenlaub said.
"The rubber acts as an evaporation barrier ... When the water tries to evaporate the cooler lower rubber particles will create a condensation layer and keep the water in."
Crumb rubber also will help new grass grow by keeping the soil soft and arable in high-traffic areas that used to get so compacted that water would not seep in.
But will Point State Park look or smell like a tire dump? No, Eichenlaub said.
Once it settles, "you won't be able to see it without cutting out the turf with a pocket knife," he said. As of yesterday, treated areas in the park were mostly green with several isolated patches of black. There was no discernible rubber smell.
The rubber costs about the same as sod, roughly 50 to 75 cents per square foot. Unlike sod, "the rubber is an inert material ... 10 years from now the rubber will still be here," he said.
The crumb rubber project is part of the state's 1996 Waste Tire Recycling Act, which allocated $11 million to support creative reuses. The program is aimed at reducing the number of tires sent to dumps, where they can serve as breeding grounds for mosquitoes or create a fire hazard.
About one ton of rubber, or 100 tires, is used to make 1,000 square feet of crumb rubber. It is made by freezing and grinding the tires, then using magnets to remove steel belting. The tires are ground again to finish the process.
Crumb rubber was invented at Michigan State University roughly six years ago. It has been used on athletic fields at Villanova and Valley Forge Military Academy and at Sun Devil Stadium at the University of Arizona.
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