Recycle Ann Arbor Teams Up to Bring Recycling to Ann Arbor Tennis Courts

October 5th, 2016

A new recycling program administered by Recycle Ann Arbor in collaboration with GIVE365, Ann Arbor Parks and Recreation and the Adopt-A-Park Program  launched this week. Tennis players will now be able to recycle their tennis ball, courtside. New green collection bins designed specifically to collect tennis balls have been installed in three area parks so far, Buhr, Burns and West park. The program plans to expand into all Ann Arbor Parks with tennis courts and eventually into our area dog parks. 

100 million tennis balls are disposed of in landfills annually throughout the U.S. This is a significant amount of waste. Recycle Ann Arbor is happy to participate in the nationwide movement to tackle this problem.  The tennis balls will be collected and sent to partners at Project Green Ball and reBounce, where they will be recycled  into tennis courts. Up to 10,000 tennis balls can be recycled into tennis courts. 

Tennis balls can also be dropped off for recycling at Recycle Ann Arbor's Drop-Off Station on 2950 E. Ellsworth Rd., however, the $3/entry fee applies. 

According to Bryan Weinert, Director of Strategy at Recycle Ann Arbor, “We hope that this is only the beginning, and that local tennis clubs, area schools, and universities will also partner with us to ensure that the Ann Arbor area is doing what it can to manage this surprisingly large, predictable and readily recyclable consumable.”