Nijmegen municipality closely involved in non-infill development

The municipality of Nijmegen, Netherlands recently invested in a trial with non-fill turf. Peter Hendriks, outdoor sports team leader: 'For us, this is the pitch of the future. Like many other municipalities, we are uncertain about the future of infill in turf pitches. We expect that polymeric infill materials (SBR, TPE, EPDM) will be banned from 2028, so we are already taking measures. Rubber has never been used in Nijmegen for environmental reasons. We prevent the spread of microplastics from TPE by using boarding material, filter pits, etc. But the risk of infill ending up in the environment remains. Therefore, we are looking for a product that doesn’t cause us any problems.’.

The municipality of Nijmegen opted for a non-infill pitch at Sport Club Excelsior, where a youth pitch required renovation. Here, the Greenfields MX NF woven synthetic turf is installed on a prefabricated e-layer. There is no sand in this system: the pitch is held in place by a clamping system.

Rutger Schuijffel of CSC sport explains: So far, non-fill pitches mainly contained sand to provide weight and stability. With the configuration of our non-fill yarns and the development of clamping systems, we are making progress. There is no sand at all in this pitch: it is completely non-fill. When this pitch is removed at the end of its lifetime, it can be recycled in just one step. There are absolutely no waste products such as sand, backing or infill.

Hendriks is very enthusiastic about the non-fill product. If it is up to him, more municipalities will follow with pilot pitches.

The installed Greenfields MX NF pitch has the dimensions of half a football pitch; about 3,300 square metres. The pitch is approved for 6 x 6 and 8 x 8 football matches and is also widely used for school sports. In the coming years, the municipality will monitor the field intensively, together with GreenFields and CSC Sport. Monitoring existing non-fill fields is one of the priorities of CSC Sport and Greenfields. At SCE we will conduct a monitoring programme for three years. We regularly carry out sport technical measurements, ask feedback from players, and we plan to use high-speed cameras to monitor player-surface interaction.