“If pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America – it means we now have the fastest growing waste stream in America. In the grand scheme of plastic waste, it’s miniscule compared to issues like film and flexible packaging – but there is a greater potential ‘story’ here about a new industry taking responsibility for their growth.” – Laura Thompson, PhD. RePickle Project Co-Founder
Have you ever wondered what happens to the thousands of balls that pickleball players break every day?
I have.
The most likely answer is this: they are placed in a landfill where they will lie until every one of us who is alive today is dead.
Most pickleballs are made of low density polyethylene (LDPE). To create it, you begin with a fossil fuel, insert additives, heat it to the correct temperature, form it into a shape, and cool it down. Global Pack Source, a plastics manufacturer, explains, “Most squeezable bottles, shrink wrap, dry cleaner bags and plastic grocery and trash bags are made from LDPE…Products made from LDPE are reusable but not often recyclable. Though, many communities are now beginning to accept #4 LDPE products for recycling. When LDPE products are recycled, they can be repurposed as plastic lumber, floor tiles or for use in landscaping.“
Many of us want to maintain the smallest carbon footprint possible and recycling is one way of doing so, but in the case of pickleballs, it doesn’t seem to be happening…yet. In the U.S., very little plastic waste, especially LDPE, is recycled. A 2020 report on recycling by Greenpeace concludes, “[T]he current U.S. domestic reprocessing capacity for post-consumer LDPE plastic waste is less than 5%. When it is accepted by a MRF, plastic #4 is typically collected as part of a mixed plastics #3-7 bale. Therefore, there is low likelihood that post-consumer LDPE waste collected by MRFs is recycled/reprocessed into plastic resin for manufacturing of new products in the U.S. It is not reasonable for U.S. consumers to believe that LDPE products that are collected by municipal systems will be recycled/reprocessed into a new product.” Other sources report similar statistics about the low rate of plastic recycling in America.
In a perfect tiny-carbon-footprint world, we’d recycle everything that is recyclable, and doing so would be simple, sustainable, and relatively inexpensive, but there are several obstacles to achieving this goal, including: contamination; additives used to achieve the desired properties; attaining and sustaining an adequate, steady supply of product; and demand for the resultant product.
An internet search of “recycle pickleballs” returns a handful of results. Collecting, boxing and shipping cracked and broken pickleballs any significant distance in the hopes of doing so makes little carbon footprint sense; however, some organizations, like The RePickle Project, co-founded by Laura Thompson, are collecting them regionally in hopes of finding a recycling or plastics company willing to try. In the past year, Dr. Thompson, a sustainability professional who holds degrees in chemical engineering and paper science, has learned that the key to any recycling initiative is to have a market for the materials and has found at least one company that would be willing to accept and transform them into resin pellets, which could then be used for experimentation. Having collected thousands of balls and completed multiple rounds of material testing, she knows that finding markets for the end product of recycled balls is limited but there are certain processes that can handle this mix of materials. Dr. Thompson has interest from several companies, including a sustainability director at Wilson Sporting Goods. They are tentatively planning a pilot collection program in the Midwest. She is also seeking a sponsor to help pay for experimentation on a large batch of balls in storage at a materials testing lab in New Hampshire to learn more about the physical properties of the mix and potential other end markets for the plastic. In addition, she has connected with the owner of HydroBlox, who is willing to take any pickleballs sent him for free, transform them into pellets, and sell the resulting product for profit; however, the cost of collecting and shipping the balls is prohibitive. Lastly, Ridwell, a company that receives many requests for hard to recycle items says something like – not yet – likely because they have other prospective constantly get requests for more hard to recycle items and they have others that are higher priority for their network.
Dr. Thompson knows that one of the keys for any successful recycling effort is to design for recyclability. In other words: it’s time to build a better ball. She believes that USA Pickleball could influence this by approving only one type of plastic and one color for tournament play. I put the question (via email) to Carl Schmits, USA Pickleball Managing Director; Equipment Standards and Facilities Development, “A number of ball manufacturers are in research mode on this. Product development and the logistics of collection and return are also under way,” is all he could say because, “R&D investments in plastics engineering are significant, any entity developing products in this space will want to control release of public info.”
The challenge of recycling pickleballs is undeniable, but by taking action today, we can pave the way for a more sustainable future. We should back companies and organizations willing to advance the possibility of pickleball recycling, which will diminish the environmental impact and bolster plastic pollution credits.
Island Unseen 