Pickleball popularity presents sustainability problems with plastic balls

When pickleball exploded in recent years as America’s favorite sport, the pastime came with collateral damage — plastic neon-colored balls piling up in landfills.

More than 500 million pickleballs are manufactured each year, seemingly with nowhere to go, said Jeff Pepper, an avid player from Verona.

“The number is huge,” Pepper said. “After a while, they break or crack and, normally, people just toss them.”

The balls shouldn’t be thrown in the trash, Pepper said, but they also shouldn’t be part of household recycling.

Pickleballs are made from polyethylene and polypropylene, both of which aren’t eligible for regular recycling.

Regulation pickleballs are small and weigh less than an ounce, but the sheer number of them is creating a clog in the recycling stream.

Pepper, a member of the nonprofit Allegheny Cleanways, spearheaded a recycling program to eliminate the plastics from ending up in rivers, green space and garbage dumps.

“I’m not going to singlehandedly change the world, but if every ball ends up being recycled, it adds up,” Pepper said.

Pepper and other volunteers teamed with Ultra-Poly Corp., a recycled plastics resin producer that operates five manufacturing facilities, including one in Scranton. Pepper said the company has offered to take the pickleballs and put them to use.

Ultra-Poly is among the largest U.S. plastic recyclers, producing more than 1 million pounds of recycled resin every day, according to its website.

“I asked them how many balls they could hold for us, and they have bins big enough to hold a Volkswagen,” Pepper said.

Locally, Pepper and his recycling crew distributed recycling bins to collect balls at multiple locations that include:

• Riverbank Park, 448 Arch St., Verona

• Riverview Park, Third Street, Oakmont

• Lauri Ann West Community Center, 1220 Powers Run Road, O’Hara

• Bairdford Park, 50 Bairdford Park Road, West Deer

• Monroeville Community Park, 2399 Tilbrook Road, Monroeville

• The Pickleball Warehouse, 6815 Hamilton Ave., Pittsburgh

In just about a month, they have collected more than 1,000 balls from about 20 bins.

In O’Hara, the Lauri Ann West Community Center hosts a thriving pickleball community, according to Shannon Smith, community engagement specialist.

The facility off Powers Run Road offers more than 60 court hours a week and is the perfect spot to draw attention to the recycling plight.

“When Jeff introduced the opportunity to join the recycling program, we eagerly accepted,” Smith said. “It aligns with our commitment to sustainability.”

Pepper’s program follows similar initiatives across the country. The Portland, Maine-based RePickle Project is on a mission to see the plastic pickleballs transform into art, birdhouses, jewelry and furniture.

The group was founded when its executive director, Laura Thompson, collected and stored more than 3,000 broken pickleballs in her garage while figuring out how to recycle them.

In Pittsburgh’s East End, the Pickleball Warehouse is an 80,000-square-foot indoor facility that has signed on as the central collection site for Pepper’s program.

“We could recycle an infinite number of pickleballs if everyone does their part,” Pepper said.

To order a pickleball recycling bin, email veronapickleball@gmail.com.