An important action within the first full phase of the LTA’s Environmental Sustainability Plan was to introduce a nationwide tennis ball recycling scheme.
As a sport, we throw away an estimated fifteen million tennis balls each year in GB. Most balls will only be played with for 4-6 hours on court, but each ball can take up to 300 years to degrade in landfill.
We have been working hard researching business that offer genuine circular solutions, and over the last six months we have ran two pilot schemes to test how a nationwide recycling scheme would work with a mixture of tennis venues across Britain.
Following a successful pilot (which diverted over 15,000 balls away from landfill) we would like you to introduce DYUCE, an ‘LTA recommended ball recycling service’. NB: More services may follow.
Tennis and padel ball rubber is infinitely recyclable, and DYUCE processes all balls, in any condition right here in the UK. The recycled rubber is used again in various circular applications including rubber soles for athletic footwear.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
DYUCE provides FREE thoughtfully designed collection pods to venues that subscribe. Each collection pod holds 250 balls.
There is a £10 a month rolling subscription to cover the administration, logistics and recycling costs.
When the collection bin is full, venues can simply scan a QR at the base of the bin to prompt a next day collection. There is a fee of £15 per box of 250 balls.
If you want find out more you can visit their website - https://www.dyuce.com/ or the team are happy to speak to you direct on info@dyuce.com.
We understand that many venues may have their own solutions whether that be donating used balls to local charities, schools, dog homes etc. but these balls still ultimately end up in landfill.
DYUCE is circular, collecting used balls and recycling the rubber to make other products and stop millions of balls from entering landfill.
COMMUNICATION
We will be communicating this announcement out to registered venues in the February venue newsletter (6th February) and pointing them to our environmental sustainability section of the venue support toolkit to find out more - Become a more sustainable venue | LTA and potentially sign up. We would appreciate your help in amplifying this message to registered venues where and when appropriate.
Thank you.
Iain Lancaster
Club Support Manager