PRESS RELEASE 13.12.2024

G-Task, Sumi Oy, and the Finnish Tennis Association have collaborated to develop the world’s first large-scale recycling project for tennis and padel balls


We consume 400 million tennis and padel balls annually – most of which end up in mixed waste after just a few uses. A ball takes approximately 400 years to decompose in nature and only 0.5% of used balls are recycled globally.

Players and professionals in the sport have long been concerned about this single-use nature of balls and their environmental impact.

Markku Aittola of G-Task, in cooperation with the Finnish Tennis Association and the packaging producer community Sumi, has developed a recycling system for tennis balls and their packaging. This system will be piloted in December 2024 at Targa Arena in Espoo.

The goal: A nationwide collection network by 2025

“The pilot project at Targa Arena in Espoo is set to last two months, during which we’ll observe how players and facility users adopt the new recycling points. We’ll also track collection volumes, sorting accuracy, and refine logistics. In 2025, we aim to expand this initiative to cover all of Finland. With around 120 million balls used annually in Europe, the long-term goal is to establish a continent-wide collection network,” shares Aittola about his vision.

Read more (Pdf) »

More information:
​
Markku Aittola​
+358 40 774 6656
markku.aittola@g-task.org​