READ MOREIn 2009, Amy Griffin, a football coach in the US, began compiling a list of football players who played on crumb-rubber artificial turf and developed cancer. She fears there is a correlation between the crumbs, which are made from used car tires, and cancer. In the meantime, the list is 230 players long. In England, former National Health Service chief Nigel Maguire is campaigning for more rigorous investigation into the rubber crumbs. His son was a goalkeeper and developed lymphoma. Every day, millions of children and adults throughout the world play on this type of artificial turf. There are nearly 2,000 pitches of this kind in the Netherlands. The crumb rubber gives the pitch the same qualities as a natural grass pitch, with the added benefit of being virtually always suitable for play. But the crumb rubber contains zinc, lead and benzene and various polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs): substances that have been proven to be carcinogenic. Despite this, the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) stated in 2006 that no health risks were anticipated from playing on these types of artificial turf pitches. ZEMBLA investigates: are we sufficiently and honestly informed about the health risks associated with crumb-rubber artificial turf pitches?