Who Could Have Thought About 'Tennis Balls' To Be Seen This Way ~ An Artist's Prespective
Almost all of the 300 million tennis balls produced for the popular sport each year are thrown away. A Belgian eco-designer has started turning some of them into custom furniture in a way that keeps the rubber balls out of the trash.Trusting The Creative Process ~ (Source: Google Images) To create the micro-cushioning parts for her two trademark items, a bench and a chaise lounge, Mathilde Wittock and her crew can manually carve 1,800 balls per day. To put it into context, only the recently finished US Open used 70,000. When they are completed, one can see why the two to three weeks it takes to manufacture them are worth it. The fuzzy part of the tennis balls is colored to resemble the colors of the inside, making them look attractive and hopefully pleasant. A tennis ball is made during the course of about 24 manufacturing processes, or about five days. Then it's so fleeting," Wittock said to CNN via video conference from Brussels. "I know there is a lot of waste because I played tennis myself, which is why I was looking into tennis balls." Since tennis balls are durable, have a short lifespan, and require 400 years to degrade in a landfill—that is, if they haven't been eaten by a dog—they looked like an easy choice when searching for novel sources of materials.(Source: Google Images) Why the tennis balls become unusable ~ The gas that gives tennis balls their bounce and the reason their packaging is sealed like a soup can are both caused by this gas. Once the ball is open, the gas gradually escapes from its core, leaving it flat and ultimately unfit for play.(Source: Google Images) Sports organizations such as the Federation of Wallonia in Belgium, recently donated to her its whole inventory of 100,000 used tennis balls—which, according to Wittock, should last for about nine months of production.Her Approach Behind This ~(Source: Google Images) “Circularity is basic to eco-design. Excellent materials with low carbon emissions or those that have been recycled can be used, but you must consider the whole life cycle. It's not eco-design if it's not circular and you can't repurpose (the elements) into another design. Because they are novel materials, it's considerably worse.”“There is no such thing as 'away'. When we throw anything away it must go somewhere.” ~ Annie Leonard, a proponent of sustainability.
