SACRAMENTO—The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has expanded the scope of its ongoing investigation of the possible environmental and health effects of crumb rubber used as athletic turf infill.
Based on input from California's Scientific Advisory Panel and from the public, OEHHA has amended the study to include:
- Methods of extracting as many chemicals as possible from crumb rubber samples for identification;
- The use of more suitable artificial bio-fluid, such as fluids that mimic human sweat, to evaluate chemicals from crumb rubber that enter the body; and
- Measurements of crumb rubber particle sizes to understand if humans can inhale small rubber particles.
To accommodate the additional analyses, OEHHA has moved the date for project completion to mid-2019, the agency said.
The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery contracted with OEHHA in 2015 to perform the crumb rubber study.
This study is concurrent with a separate federal inter-agency study of the possible effects of crumb rubber turf. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the other involved agencies released their research protocol in August 2016, and plan to issue a draft report before the end of the year.