St. Luke's school junior brings local tennis ball recycling initiative to New Canaan
According to Recycleballs.org, the reason there was no way to recycle them was because there was no money in re-using the materials, while the process of separating the rubber from the felt was also expensive and time consuming.
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Luke Riley, a New Canaan resident and junior at St. Luke's School, has started an initiative to bring tennis ball recycling to the area, partnering with Reycleballs.org.
"If you look out on the courts anywhere, there's so many balls. I realized, you know, like where are these going? I'm pretty sure they just throw them out," said Luke, a lifelong tennis player.
Many players open a new can of balls every time they play, leading to an estimated 125 million tennis balls being discarded every year - creating 20,000 tons of methane-producing waste, with each one taking an average of 400 years to decompose.
"All of these stats for everything, they really shock you, they really make you think a lot," Luke said.
According to Recycleballs.org, the reason there was no way to recycle them was because there was no money in reusing the materials, while the process of separating the rubber from the felt was also expensive and time-consuming - something Luke and his father quickly learned.
"Initially, they were just going to collect themselves, and then they realized that they didn't have the capacity to be able to recycle them properly either," said Michelle Riley, Luke's mother. "So, they found a company down in West Virginia that they could partner with."
That company was Recycleballs, which created its own dedicated plant specifically for breaking down tennis balls and turning them into something called "green gold" - a rubber pellet material made by separating and grinding up tennis balls. It can then be used to make different types of turf, along with traffic safety equipment and even tennis courts.
Recycleballs sends Luke collection boxes, which he has been placing around New Canaan since the summer - at the library, New Canaan Racquet Club, The Field Club of New Canaan and Woodway Country Club.
So far, he says he has collected around 8,000 balls.
"Seeing 8,000 balls get put to a better use than just sitting in a landfill is amazing," said Luke. "Every time I send one of those boxes off, it feels good."
That being said, it had turned into a pretty big responsibility.
"I feel a little sorry for him sometimes, because he's such a busy junior and our barn has turned into a tennis ball recycling center, because he has to get around to packaging them and shipping them out," said Michelle.
He might need a bigger barn soon. Luke says as word gets out, more and more places have started reaching out to him about getting boxes of their own.
