WASHINGTON — As soon as you crack open a new can on tennis balls, they instantly start losing pressure. Eventually, a bouncy ball becomes a dead one. How you get rid of balls that have lost their bounce can make a big impact on the environment.
We met up with Mark DiChiara. He's an avid tennis player, instructor, and General Manager at Georgetown Prep Tennis Club, in Rockville, Maryland.
"We go through thousands of balls every every year and we've just been throwing away balls and throwing away balls," DiChiara said.
People chuck tennis balls in the trash because they are hard to recycle. It's difficult to separate the fuzzy felt from the rubber and recycle the materials. That’s a problem for our planet.
Each year, 125 million tennis balls bounce into landfills with each ball taking 400 years or longer to decompose.
Vermont based nonprofit RecycleBalls.org has an ace of a solution and is scoring a big win for our planet.
"It's amazing how one ball may not seem like a big deal but I mean this program is almost runs itself." DiChiara said.
RecycleBalls has a tennis ball collection program that works with more than 6,000 partners nationwide.
Each partner pays a yearly fee. They get postage-paid collection bins to set out that are filled up with used tennis balls, and then the bins are sent back.
"RecycleBalls is a great program for people to do away with tennis balls they are not going to use anymore," DiChiara said.
Its Play It Green specialized machine separates the rubber and felt. Some gets mixed together and becomes fluffy footing in horse arenas. and the rest of the rubber is repurposed and used in new tennis court construction.
DiChiara said he wanted to bring RecycleBalls to Georgetown Prep because he was intrigued with the program.
"I had just gotten done throwing away 10 trash bags full of tennis balls and I said we’ve got to figure out a way to put this into our club," he said.
In the last six years, Georgetown Prep said it has sent in more than 105,000 tennis balls, making it one of RecycleBalls’ top five recycling partners in the country.
About a year ago, attorney, tennis player and big-time sports fan Steven Krieger joined the RecycleBalls team as one of its board members.
"I love tennis, I love the environment. I love running my own business, I love kind of giving back to the community. I’ve always been heavily involved environmental issues, I'm a big sustainability person so you know, sort of doing what you can do to sort of do your part, it's important to me, and it's a great organization," Krieger said.
RecycleBalls is also serving up a solution and giving multiple lives to tennis balls through its Second Throw bulk tennis ball buying program for pup-pups.
"What a great sort of full cycle, and it keeps the stuff out of landfills. It's maybe not the biggest thing in the world that that you can do to save the planet but every little bit counts. You know, extend the life, keep them out of the landfills. Whatever you can do!"
RecycleBalls said through its partnerships in our communities, it’s saved more than 12 million balls from landfills.
If you are looking to recycle old tennis balls in your communty, check with tennis facilities, gyms and clubs in your area.
Virginia
Capital Stringing & Tennis, 7801 Appledore Court, Falls Church, VA 22043
Maryland
Prince George’s County, MD
Junior Tennis Champion Center, 5200 Campus Drive, College Park, MD 20740
Montgomery County, MD (Setting up collection bins soon)
- Norwood Local Park Tennis Courts: 4700 Norwood Dr, Chevy Chase, MD 20815
- Potomac Community Neighborhood Park Tennis Courts: 11301 Falls Rd, Potomac, MD 20854
- Cabin John Regional Park Outdoor Tennis Courts: 10600 Westlake Dr, Rockville, MD 20852
Howard County, MD
- Centennial Park North, 9801 Old Annapolis Rd, Ellicott City, MD 21042
- Centennial Park West, 4651 Centennial Ln, Ellicott City, MD 21042
- Rockburn Branch Park, 6105 Rockburn Branch Park Rd, Elkridge, MD 21075
- Blandair Park, 5750 Oakland Mills Rd, Columbia, MD 21045
- Western Regional Park, 14800 Carrs Mill Rd, Woodbine, MD 21723
- Cedar Lane Park East, 10745 Route 108 (East), Columbia, MD 21044
- Meadowbrook Park, 5001 Meadowbrook Ln, Ellicott City, MD 21043
- Savage Park, 400 Fair St, Savage, MD 20763