The Problem
330 million balls. No widely available recycling system.
Tennis balls combine a rubber core with a tightly bonded felt covering, making them difficult to process through conventional recycling systems. Around 330 million tennis balls are produced worldwide each year, and most are eventually discarded. In the United States alone, an estimated 125 million used balls enter landfills annually. Some estimates suggest that a tennis ball can take more than 400 years to decompose.
330 M balls manufactured each year globally [1]
125M used balls estimated to enter U.S. landfills annually [2]
400+ years to decompose in a landfill [3]
Sources: [1] RecycleBalls, “Our Solution”; [2] Associated Press reporting on tennis-ball waste; [3] Stanford All About No Waste Network. Accessed July 2026.
Second Serve Sustainability responds by collecting usable tennis balls before they are discarded and connecting them with organizations that could put them to better use, while those that are unusable get recycled.
1. Collect
We partner with tennis clubs, schools, teams, and programs to collect used tennis balls before they are thrown away.
2. Sort
Our team counts and sorts each collection based on the condition of the balls and their best possible next use.
Our Process
3. Recycle
Balls that are no longer usable for tennis are sent to RecycleBalls, where they can be processed for reuse or recycling instead of entering a landfill.
Learn more: recycleballs.org
3. Redistribute
Balls that remain suitable for practice or instruction are provided to schools, coaches, youth programs, and community organizations.