We’ve heard of a lot of strange things that you can do with turf. Recently, we shipped a large quantity of turf to a client of ours in Portland Oregon to be used in an art installation piece. This was perhaps the most unusual use of synthetic turf we have helped fulfill. We were surprised, however, to find that Coca Cola in Japan and other vending machine manufacturers are using synthetic turf to insulate vending machines. The thinking behind the use is that covering the units in a mixture of artificial turf and moss will insulate the machines better and thereby decrease the cost of refrigeration.

Imagine all vending machines being wrapped in the fake grass, topped with solar panels to decrease the cost of refrigeration. It would surely be an interesting site and True Turf would most definitely love to wrap vending machines in our finest synthetic turf but it probably won’t happen in America any time soon. The Japanese have been modifying vending machines perhaps more than any other nation and innovative design in vending is rather common there. Here, not so much. There’s always hope.