There’s nothing like the smell of new tennis balls, that feeling of peeling open a fresh can. But what happens to the old ones? You toss them without thinking twice.

Until recently, that was the only thing you could do. And the waste added up: while amateurs can play with the same balls for over a year, the pros go through a new can every 7 games! An estimated 14 million balls and 4 million plastic or metal cans per year are thrown out by players in France alone.

But the French Tennis Federation (FFT) has been trying to change that with their “Balle jaune” (or yellow ball) initiative, a ball recycling program we covered on these pages last year. With the help of partner company COVED, and the financial contribution of Fed-Ex, the FFT coordinated the collection of balls, tapping their network of over a million licensed tennis players. This year, 19 of their 36 leagues took part (up from 7 leagues last year) and 600,000 used balls were collected. They were then processed for their rubber, free of charge, by a company called Recam. The rubber collected was then converted into sports surfaces. Last year, the surfaces created were donated to rehabilitation centres for physically handicapped children.

Balle jaune is not only important because of what it is able to donate at the end; it also helps in the development of environmental sensitivity among individuals. All phases of the recycling process were accompanied by information sessions for a wide public of tennis instructors, players and managers of all ages. Let’s not forget it also pushed the envelope of recycling methods for tennis balls: Recam’s process was one that had never been done before!

Balle Jaune is a part of the “Tennis and Environment” campaign, launched in 2008 by the FTT and the Minister of Ecology and Sustainable Development.