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Sustainability practice in tennis is something that doesn’t really cross many tennis player’s minds, but it really should. When you start to think how many tennis balls we open from a new can, hit as hard as we can with lots of crazy spin, then decide they are not bouncing quite how we want (trust me we are very picky when it comes to what makes the ball good enough) and then replace them. This cycle starts again. Using a basket of balls for practice, which is made up of 24 cans, then 4 balls per can, means we are playing with 96 balls. This is then changed weekly, with a whole new set of balls. So just in this one semester we are using about 1536 tennis balls… and the tennis season hasn’t even begun yet!
Seems like a waste really, so where do all these tennis balls go? If they went in the trash that would be a waste but these tennis balls are then recycled. Some are distributed to the club team, for them to have free and decent balls. The rest are distributed to local schools for children to enjoy and play with.
I know what you’re thinking now though, where do they go after that? Well when they’ve reached the stage of flat and fluffy balls, they can no longer be used for tennis. These tennis balls are then commonly used as dog toys, or more innovatively they are used as decoration. Such as on the outside of trash cans at some local clubs (but not inside the trash can) or as props for tennis scoring, where they don’t need to bounce anymore only required to look like the size of a tennis ball and hopefully still be slightly yellow.
Sadly there will be waste where many balls are put in the trash and not recycled. This is inevitable in our society but I think people are trying harder. The materials in these tennis balls are not easily broken down but there may come a time where the biodegradable tennis ball is invented.
Try picturing the tennis centre at Furman to have every chair like the one pictured below, well stop because we haven’t quite reached that impressive level of being that sustainable. Hopefully, in the near future though I could have some influence in making that happen… not sure they look particularly comfortable though but definitely sustainable.
Hannah Ferrett
