Fiend at Court Unplugged
The new court surface for the US Open this year got a lot of press, primarily because it was significantly faster than it has been in previous years. “Laykold Court Surface: The Rest of the Story” provided the details of how the new US Open court surface also fulfills environmental sustainability objectives for the USTA. A significant ingredient of the Laykold surface is recycled tennis balls.
As a coda to that story, Summer Richbourg commented on that article indicating that she recycles her balls through the “reBounces” program. In the interim I have been recycling our balls through the Wilson sponsored “RecycleBalls” initiative.
Recycling balls has become super easy. For the service I use the basic requirement is to collect at least 100 balls. It doesn’t take long to accumulate that number in the Fiend at Court household. The donor of the balls also has to supply a box for shipment. As it turns out, amazon delivers suitable boxes to our household on a regular basis.
Currently the ball recycling initiatives provide printable shipping labels and cover all the costs. We also received a receipt providing evidence of the donation along with guidelines on how the balls can be valued for tax purposes.
Historically tennis balls have not been recyclable at all, however that is no longer the case. Tennis players need to be aware that balls are now a recyclable commodity and act accordingly. The recycling services make super easy to do the right thing for the planet. We should all recycle our balls.
