Plastic in the garden: hoses, soil, compost and artificial turf

Gardening is supposed to be the antidote. Hands in the soil, food from seed, nothing in a clamshell. Then you look at what’s actually in the shed: a vinyl hose, a stack of black pots, a bag of compost with a plastic window, maybe a lawn that’s plastic all the way down.

Most of the garden plastic story isn’t about you swallowing anything. It’s about soil, the one thing we can’t replace, quietly filling up with plastic from farm films, food-waste compost and sewage sludge. But there are a couple of places where the garden does touch your body: the water you drink from the hose, and the turf your kids roll around on. We’ll take them in that order, with the evidence graded as we go.

Your hose: the one you actually drink from

Plenty of us drank from a garden hose as kids, and plenty of kids still do. So it’s worth knowing what’s in one.

The most detailed testing we found is from the Ecology Center, a Michigan advocacy group that runs the HealthyStuff lab. This is NGO testing, not peer-reviewed research, but the methods and full data are published. In 2016 they bought and tested 32 hoses from Amazon, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Meijer, Target and Walmart. Twenty-four were PVC (vinyl). Ten were labelled drinking water safe.

What they found:

• Lead. In 7 of the 24 PVC hoses, the flexible plastic held at least 100 ppm lead, the US limit for children’s products. The worst, an HDX utility hose, measured about 68,000 ppm, or nearly 7% lead by weight. Separately, 4 of the 27 metal fittings tested had elevated lead.
• Phthalates. Phthalate plasticisers turned up in 18 of the 24 PVC hoses. Lab tests on three hoses found several phthalates, including DEHP and DINP, at a combined 1% to over 8% of the hose’s weight. For what these chemicals do, see our phthalates explainer.
• Recycled electronics. Several hoses had high bromine, antimony and tin, the signature of flame retardants and stabilisers from old cable insulation. The researchers concluded recycled e-waste PVC was going into some hoses. It’s the same problem we found in black plastic kitchen utensils.
• None of this in non-PVC hoses. The eight polyurethane, rubber and other hoses had none of these chemicals in the hose itself.

Then the part that matters for drinking: does any of it get into the water? The team filled seven hoses with tap water and left it for 48 hours. Three hoses with lead in the plastic released lead at 13, 19 and 20 parts per billion, against the EPA drinking-water action level of the time, 15 ppb. One of three samples tested for BPA had 87 ppb. No phthalates were detected that year, though the group’s 2012 and 2013 tests had found them in every water sample, plus BPA at up to 2,300 ppb.

That’s a tiny leaching test, with water left standing for two days, so don’t read it as “every sip from a hose is poisoned”. Read it as: chemicals in the hose can get into still water, especially warm water left in the hose, and the dirtiest hoses are cheap PVC.

The labels did help. The ten hoses labelled drinking water safe had no lead above 100 ppm and no significant bromine or antimony. But 3 of those 10 still contained phthalates. A hose sold as “lead-free couplings” only promises the metal ends are clean. Two hose models with that label had lead, bromine and phthalates in the hose itself.

What California’s Prop 65 does (and doesn’t) do

That small-print warning on a hose’s packaging is usually California’s Proposition 65. The law doesn’t ban lead in hoses. It requires a warning when a product exposes people to a listed chemical above a set level, and lets the state or private groups sue when a warning is missing.

Hoses were an early target. In 2003 the Center for Environmental Health filed a Prop 65 notice over lead in water hoses against Gilmour, Teknor Apex, Flexon and Goodyear. A San Francisco court entered judgment in CEH v. Tekni-Plex, against Tekni-Plex, Teknor Apex and Flexon, in August 2004; the state’s record lists the relief as “warnings or reformulation”. Enforcement against individual hose and fitting sellers has continued since. As the 2016 test results show, a warning label isn’t the same as lead-free.

The Ecology Center’s own reading of that label: on a hose, a Prop 65 warning likely means it contains lead.

Compost: the plastic you dig in yourself

Home compost made from your own leaves and peelings only contains the plastic you put in. Bought compost is a different matter, because much of it is made from food waste collected from households and businesses, and that waste arrives with stickers, bags, wrappers and the odd fork.

The best-known study is from Germany. Researchers sampled fertiliser from plants that turn household and commercial food waste into compost and digestate. Every sample from a biowaste plant contained plastic, ranging from 14 to 895 particles over 1 mm per kilogram (dry weight). The cleanest was certified, quality-labelled compost from a composting plant, at 20 to 24 particles per kilo. The dirtiest came from a digester taking commercial food waste, where packaged food often goes in with its packaging. Digestate from farm biogas plants running on energy crops and manure had almost none. And these counts don’t include particles under 1 mm, which the team didn’t quantify, so the true numbers are higher.

So it’s not compost that’s the problem. It’s what we throw in the food-waste bin.

What the rules allow

The EU does regulate this, up to a point. Compost sold with a CE mark under the EU Fertilising Products Regulation may contain no more than 3 g/kg dry matter of glass, metal or plastic pieces above 2 mm. Since 16 July 2026, plastic on its own is capped at 2.5 g/kg. That compost also can’t be made from mixed household rubbish or sewage sludge.

Notice what that limit leaves out. It only counts pieces over 2 mm, so microplastics don’t count at all. And 2.5 grams per kilo is about a quarter of a percent of plastic, which is allowed. Compost sold outside the CE-marking route is covered by national rules instead.

“Compostable” packaging adds another wrinkle. Some of it breaks down well in industrial composters; plenty survives home heaps. That’s covered in our bioplastics explainer.

Sewage sludge: where the laundry lint ends up

Wastewater plants are good at catching microplastics. They catch them by moving them into the sludge, and a lot of that sludge is then spread on farmland as fertiliser. Much of what’s in it is fibre from our clothes. Our synthetic clothes article covers where that starts.

Two field studies show it building up:

• In Chile, researchers sampled 31 farm fields with up to ten years of sludge records. Sludge contained 18 to 41 microplastic particles per gram, and soil plastic rose with each application, from a median of 1.1 particles per gram after one dose to 3.5 after five. About 97% of the particles in the soil were fibres.
• In a US field trial where biosolids had been applied for 23 years, the biosolids held about 12,000 particles per kilo. Treated soils had 361 to 500 particles per kilo, against 117 in untreated soil. Plastic falling from the air added about 15 particles per kilo of soil a year, so sludge isn’t the only route in.

Neither study tells you what this does to crops or to the people who eat them. That research is young. A 2026 meta-analysis of 89 studies found microplastics changed soil carbon, raised CO₂ emissions by 39% and lowered pH, but the effects depended heavily on plastic type and dose, and many experiments were short lab incubations. It’s a fair summary to say plastic changes how soil behaves. Whether that harms harvests at real-world levels isn’t settled.

The PFAS problem is clearer than the microplastic one

Sludge also concentrates PFAS, the “forever chemicals” (our explainer), and here the health case is stronger. In January 2025 the US EPA released a draft risk assessment that modelled farms using biosolids containing just 1 part per billion of PFOA or PFOS. Even at that low level, it found risks could exceed EPA’s acceptable thresholds for people living on or near those farms, or eating mostly what they produce, through milk, eggs, well water and fish. The assessment didn’t look at the general population, who eat food from many places.

It was never finalised, and it isn’t a regulation. In July 2026 EPA published draft guidance saying the 2025 assessment had “a number of flaws” and that 1 ppb was only a modelling starting point, not a “safe level”. That guidance is voluntary, and was itself still a draft when we checked in October 2026.

What the rules allow

• United States. Federal sludge rules set limits for nine metals, including lead, cadmium and mercury, plus pathogen rules. They set no limit for microplastics or PFAS. Treated sludge that meets the metal limits can be sold in bags for lawns and home gardens.
• Maine went further than anyone. Since 2022 it has banned spreading sludge on land and selling compost made with it. Sludge and septage go to landfill instead.
• European Union. The 1986 Sewage Sludge Directive limits heavy metals in sludge and soil. It has nothing on microplastics or PFAS. The Commission evaluated the directive in 2023 but hasn’t proposed a replacement.

For gardeners, the practical point is simple. Some bagged fertilisers and soil improvers are made from treated sewage sludge, sometimes sold as “biosolids”. If the bag says so and you’re growing food, leave it on the shelf.

Farm plastic: the mulch film problem

Most plastic in soil worldwide doesn’t come from gardens. It comes from farms. Agricultural value chains use about 12.5 million tonnes of plastic products a year, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, and industry experts quoted by FAO expect demand for greenhouse, mulch and silage films to grow from 6.1 million tonnes in 2018 to 9.5 million in 2030.

Mulch film, the thin plastic sheet laid over crop rows, is useful. It suppresses weeds and cuts the need for herbicides, fertiliser and irrigation. The trouble is that thin film tears, and bits get ploughed in. A survey of 384 soil samples across 19 Chinese provinces found microplastics rose the longer a field had been mulched: about 80 particles per kilo after 5 years, 308 after 15 years and 1,076 after 24. The polymer matched the film.

In a home garden, black plastic sheeting and woven “weed membrane” do the same job, and they fall apart the same way. We found no study measuring what garden membranes shed, so treat that as reasonable inference, not measurement.

Artificial turf: the lawn that’s made of plastic

Plastic grass is two problems stacked on top of each other: the turf itself, and the rubber crumbs scattered between the blades on most sports pitches.

Crumb rubber: what’s in it, and who’s exposed

Most infill is crumb rubber, ground-up car tyres, so it carries the same chemistry as tyre dust: zinc, PAHs and the antioxidant 6PPD, which forms the salmon-killing 6PPD-quinone. Our tyre article covers that chemistry in detail.

For the people playing on it, the best US data comes from a multi-year federal study by EPA and the CDC’s toxics agency, finished in April 2024. They found a range of metals, organic chemicals and bacteria in the crumb, but concluded exposures are “likely limited”. Only 1% to 3% of metals dissolved into simulated body fluids. Metal levels in players’ blood were similar to the general population. There was no difference in PAH breakdown products in the urine of players on turf and on grass. Air at an indoor turf field carried more chemicals than at outdoor ones. EPA stresses the study isn’t a risk assessment.

A 2026 review of 20 studies and 13 agency reports came to a similar view: most found low or negligible risk to players, though in some cases estimated risks exceeded the usual thresholds. It also called the evidence “highly fragmentary”, with methods too different to compare cleanly.

So the human-health case against crumb rubber is weaker than its reputation. The environmental case is stronger. A 2026 study that sampled stormwater from turf fields found crumb rubber released more 6PPD-quinone, zinc and copper than alternative infills, and the chemical didn’t fade as the infill aged. Runoff from one field reached 130 nanograms of 6PPD-quinone per litre. That’s above the levels that kill juvenile coho salmon; the authors put it at more than three times the lethal concentration. They estimate a typical field leaks under 1% of its 6PPD each year, which means it keeps leaking for years after the pitch is ripped up.

Infill also simply escapes, carried off on boots, in kit bags and down drains. In the EU, regulators found granular infill was the largest source of intentionally added microplastics, and its sale will be banned from October 2031, after an eight-year transition. See our policy tracker for the full timeline.

PFAS in the turf itself

PFAS are often used in making plastic and rubber, and turf is both. A Swedish study of 51 samples from Stockholm fields found fluorine in every one, in the backing, infill and blades. But it was almost all locked up in polymers. The PFAS that leach out and build up in people were at very low levels or not found. The authors concluded the fluorine “does not pose an imminent risk to users”, while flagging concerns about manufacturing, disposal and microplastic shedding.

That’s one city’s fields, and US turf may differ. Lawmakers aren’t waiting:

• Colorado: since 1 January 2026, no one may install artificial turf containing intentionally added PFAS anywhere in the state. Existing turf can stay.
• Vermont: from 1 January 2026, manufacturers may not sell or distribute artificial turf with intentionally added PFAS.
• Maine: a sales ban on turf with intentionally added PFAS starts in 2029.
• California: the legislature passed a turf PFAS ban in 2023, but Governor Newsom vetoed it, saying it didn’t identify an agency to determine compliance or enforce it. If you’ve read that California banned PFAS turf, it didn’t.

Even PFAS-free plastic turf is still a lawn made of plastic. It sheds, it ends up in landfill, and it has no soil life under it.

Pots, trays and everything else in the shed

The rest of garden plastic (pots, seed trays, plant labels, netting, watering cans) is mostly a waste problem, not an exposure one. We haven’t found good evidence that a polypropylene pot harms the plant in it, and we won’t invent one.

But the waste side is real. Most nursery pots are black, and black plastic is hard to recycle, because the carbon black pigment hides it from the near-infrared scanners that sorting plants use. Whether your council takes plant pots at all is a local question, so check before you put them in the bin.

The best pot is the one you already have. Reuse it until it cracks.

What you can actually do

Ranked by how strong the evidence is:

1. Buy a hose labelled drinking water safe, ideally polyurethane or rubber (good evidence, NGO testing). In the 2016 tests, the drinking-water-safe hoses had no significant lead, and the non-PVC hoses had none of the problem chemicals in the hose itself. Don’t settle for “lead-free couplings”, which only covers the metal ends. If your hose has a Prop 65 lead warning, don’t let kids drink from it.
2. Run the hose before drinking or filling a paddling pool, and store it in the shade (good evidence). The leaching tests used water left standing for 48 hours, and heat speeds up leaching. A few seconds of flushing clears the standing water.
3. Skip sludge-based fertiliser on food crops (moderate evidence). EPA’s 2025 draft found possible PFAS risks for people relying on biosolids-treated farms, even at low levels (EPA now calls that draft flawed), and the field studies show microplastics building up. Read the bag for “biosolids” or “sewage sludge”.
4. Make your own compost, and keep plastic out of the food bin (moderate evidence). Contamination in bought compost tracks what goes into the waste stream. If you buy compost, quality-certified products from source-separated waste were the cleanest in the German study.
5. Choose grass, clover, gravel or plants over plastic turf (moderate evidence for environmental harm; weak for direct health harm). If your school or club is choosing a pitch, ask about non-tyre infill and PFAS-free turf, and about drainage that keeps crumbs out of storm drains.
6. Use cardboard, wood chip or straw instead of plastic sheeting for weeds (reasonable inference; not directly measured in gardens). Mulch film breaks into soil plastic on farms, and there’s no reason to think garden sheeting behaves better.
7. Reuse pots and trays; avoid buying new black plastic (weak evidence on health; clear waste benefit).

The bigger fixes aren’t in your shed. They’re the laws: PFAS limits for sludge, a microplastic limit for compost that counts particles under 2 mm, and a federal answer on turf instead of a state-by-state patchwork. Follow those on our policy page.