Artificial turf may not sound terribly environmentally friendly but Melbourne-based Sports Technology International (STI) has recently launched a new technology – called Re-Creation – that converts used plastic bottles into synthetic grass. With at least 25% recycled content used in the product, the company claims it recycles more than 30 plastic bottles for every square metre installed.

STI has provided synthetic sports surfaces for numerous sporting events, including the Australian Open and the track and hockey surfacing at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Martin Schlegel, managing director of parent company Advanced Polymer Technology Australasia, claims that synthetic surfaces are environmentally friendly as they do not require watering, mowing, fertiliser or extensive maintenance. "More than 50% of our products – even the adhesive – is made from recycled materials. Some of the surfacing lasts for 20 years," he says.

With much of Southern Europe starting to experience unprecedented droughts and floods, STI is confident of a big uptick in interest in the type of synthetic-turf golf courses it has pioneered in Australia. There, it linked with OzGolf Technologies to create the world's first synthetic 18-hole course in Zilzie Bay. STI has just surfaced the French golf village Oxylane and Schlegel says there is much interest from golf-course developers in the Middle East. The biggest potential market, however, is Asia. The company says it is also rolling out synthetic turf for property developments in Southern Europe.

Schlegel says its biggest European push yet will come next year on the back of the London Olympics, for which STI hopes to provide the hockey fields. It has already been providing surfaces for athletes to train on. These fields will be identical to traditional hockey fields with one tiny difference – they will be blue, which the broadcasters say is more televisual.