CEN TC 217 - SURFACES FOR SPORT AREAS NORMAPME Mirror Committee

This is the Mirror Committee for TC217 - Surfaces for Sports Areas. The Mirror Committee is the group of SMEs that support the NORMAPME expert in presenting the views of SMEs during the drafting of standard. Important discussion documents, such as draft standards, can be found under [All documents], the [group forum] is where Mirror Committee members can discuss work in progress.

The priority of TC 217 is to standardise a series of test methods to determine the desired properties that are important to the performance of sport surfaces and to the protection of those performing on them. Current discussions focus mainly on tests concerning leaching, VOC’s and dust. In addition WG6 - Synthetic turf areas aims at incorporating elements of environmental compatibility into the CEN Standards currently being produced and future standards to be produced.

Our expert Mr Frank Kempeneers actively participates in the work of WG6 TG1 ‘Environmental Aspects’ which debates on a standard on leaching test for artificial turf systems. There are various national standards in this area and the incorporation of particular tests in the final document and the definition of monitoring frequency for each compartment involved in testing can strongly affect SME companies from this sector. The aim is to get a standard which adheres to national environmental legislation, if possible, and to minimise the frequency of sampling and testing to the limits of scientifically acceptable schemes in order to keep the EN norm affordable. Due to the wide range of costly tests on environmental and health issues involved, there is a potential risk of significant costs for SMEs.

During the meetings of the TG1 various tests were endorsed by the national delegations. Our expert backed by NORMAPME presented a position paper regarding a Dutch research on health and environmental aspects of rubber infill from recycled tires. The document concluded that the leaching of all components listed in the Building Materials Decree would not exceed environmental limit values, with an exception for zinc. However, currently there are no tests or research available that would include the impact of aging and weathering and as a result the existing tests may not actually reflect reality. Therefore, Switzerland, France and the Netherlands decided to conduct lysimeter tests to check again the leaching of zinc in a more comprehensive way.

The final results of the tests indicate that there is no danger for environment because of the leaching of zinc. Nonetheless, the applied testing method needs to be validated so that it could be put in the standard. Validation of testing requires a lot of preparatory work and is quite expensive. Therefore NORMAPME expert tries to create an inventory of costs for relevant round-robin testing before starting to look for the funds.

In addition to this activity we also follow the documents distributed in CEN PC 366 – Tyre recycling working on the standardization of the materials produced in the tyre recycling cycle and – at the same time – of their utilization in specific end uses market sectors (applications). Luckily, for the time being there are no major concerns for us related to the developments in this Project Committee.

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This Mirror Committee is managed by Sarah Burke (s.burke@normapme.com). The NORMAPME expert is Mr. Frank Kempeneers - frank@kempeneers-milieu.nl