In 2021, then-Gov. Tom Wolf announced that a Danish artificial turf recycler would be opening its first U.S. processing center in Pennsylvania, providing a new destination for ever-accumulating piles of discarded sports fields. The company, Re-Match, would receive Pennsylvania loans and grants totaling $1.85 million to open its recycling facility, which is expected to create around 40 new jobs in the commonwealth, officials said.

More than a year later, the processing center hasn’t opened. In fact, an official in Rush Township, Schuylkill County, where the future plant is expected to operate, said the company hasn’t yet gotten the municipal approvals needed for the project. Meanwhile, the artificial turf they one day hope to recycle has been waiting around, stacked in sagging piles in Pennsylvania fields and parking lots. And the very same company that is in line to capture nearly $2 million in state incentives is also getting notices that it’s violating the commonwealth’s environmental laws.

Over the last few years, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has identified infractions at three separate sites where Re-Match was storing the turf. DEP officials haven't yet imposed any fines on Re-Match for the violations and are working with the company on a plan to relocate the material to the location of its future processing center, an agency representative said.

Re-Match representatives acknowledged there have been delays in opening the Pennsylvania recycling facility, as they've been focusing first on launching another location in Holland. It would have been far cheaper and easier for them to discard the fields rather than storing them for years — but they say they couldn't do that.

"We don't want it to be landfilled or burned," Re-Match CEO and co-founder Nikolaj Magne Larsen said. "One of the worst things I can do, from a board perspective/owner's perspective, is to throw my materials away, even though it costs me more to store them."