Tennis Ball Recycling

The Issue

Tennis is incredibly environmentally-destructive, and its outsized harm lies in the disposability of the sport. A tennis player will have to constantly change their grips, replace their strings, and purchase new rackets. The greatest culprit of all, however, is the tennis ball.

Tennis balls are composed of a rubber core and a felt exterior made of wool and nylon. Rubber harvesting threatens forests and biodiversity, while nylon is a petroleum-based plastic. Once the balls are produced, they are packaged in thick plastic or aluminum containers with a metal lid and a plastic cap. Companies will intentionally use non-recyclable or virgin plastic because the recyclable kind will leak pressure from its pores. After the balls have been manufactured and packaged, they will get shipped all around the world. This sequence of events will release 1.2 pounds of carbon emissions per ball. 

The most detrimental part is that each ball will only last for one to two sessions. In professional matches, they are swapped out every seven to nine games, which ends up being a mere thirty minutes of play. When the balls are flat or the felt has worn down, they will get thrown in the trash and sit in a landfill where they decay and release methane for over 400 years. Annually in the United States, 125 million of these disposable non-biodegradable balls will end up in a landfill.

The Solution

Inspired by the video "Why Tennis Balls are an Environmental Disaster", All About No Waste turned to a company called RecycleBalls. RecycleBalls is a company based in Vermont that will collect tennis balls, remove the felt, and repurpose the rubber into courts, playgrounds, and turf. In 2021, they partnered with the US Open and a sports surfacing company to refurbish public tennis courts in New York. All About No Waste procured funding from the Athletics Department to partner with RecycleBalls and make tennis more circular at Stanford.