How to Make Tennis More Sustainable

When you throw away old tennis string, tennis balls or court shoes, it may feel like a small amount of waste. After all, these are small items that don’t take up a lot of room in the garbage when you toss them one at a time.

But have you ever thought about how all that trash can pile up in a landfill over the years?

How does your tennis waste add up?

Tennis string, shoes and balls accumulate in our landfills over time. In fact, tens of thousands of pounds of tennis waste are added to our landfills each year!

How does your tennis waste impact this number? Think about the amount you may throw away during your tennis career.

Take tennis string for example. Let’s say…
• You play tennis from the age of 12 to 72 (or more, since it is the “sport of a lifetime”).
• You get your racquet restrung about four times per year (the minimum recommended frequency).
• Your tennis string averages 40 feet in length.

When you do the math, you could be throwing away 9,600 feet of tennis string over your tennis career. That’s the length of 32 football fields!

How can you help reduce tennis waste?

If you love tennis and love the earth (like we do!), what can you do to help solve this problem? We have good news – the answer isn’t quitting tennis!

Tennis innovators have found ways to recycle and reuse tennis balls over the years; and there are options to donate or recycle old tennis shoes. However, used tennis string has continued to be a problem.

That’s why Velociti owner Ryan Burbary set his heart and mind on solving this problem. Ryan worked in tennis stores throughout his younger years and saw first-hand how tennis string waste can add up.

After years of working on this issue, Ryan and his team at Velociti debuted the world’s first 100% biodegradable synthetic tennis string: Velociti Catalyst in December 2022.

A fully biodegradable tennis string

Velociti Catalyst is a 16-gauge polyester string made with a patent-pending, organic technology that allows it to decompose 100x faster than other synthetic strings. Velociti Catalyst fully biodegrades within just three to five years compared with other synthetic tennis strings that take 400 to 600 years to decompose.

If you’re torn on choosing between sustainability or performance, you don’t have to make that choice anymore.

When it comes to playability, Velociti Catalyst string performs just as well as the competition, but it has the added benefit of environmental sustainability. So, you can rest easy knowing you’ll still play your best while using a greener product.

Just the beginning of tennis sustainability

Velociti Catalyst biodegradable tennis string is just one way that Ryan and his team are working to make tennis more sustainable.

Velociti is also working hard to protect the environment by reducing packaging waste. The TurboPoly string line comes unpackaged to reduce single-use packaging from ending up in landfills. Velociti is also continuing to pursue new opportunities to reinvent single use tennis products using more sustainable methods. In addition to improving your grip, our Grip-Enhancing Towel can also help prolong the life of your grip to reduce how often you need to replace it.

Velociti was born in Boulder, Colorado, a city well known for its green focus, so designing with sustainability in mind is a natural fit.

Check out more sustainable products on the Velociti website, and follow us on Instagram @VelocitiSports to stay in the loop on our next game changing sustainable product. Hint: it’s already in the works!