Green Daily

Although the efforts began in 2007, the 2009 tournament is the first year of scaled up efforts. USTA has been working with Natural Resource Defense Council to move towards clean energy, recycled napkins and visible efforts across the Tennis Center.

Last year only 15 percent of the trashcans were accompanied by a recycle bin. This year the ratio is one-to-one. Napkins once made from virgin forest are now 90 percent post-consumer paper. The U.S. Open, known for its night matches, consumes 2,000 megawatt-hours of electricity, which is now supplied by renewable wind credits. Two kitchens are equipped with large bins to collect food waste for composting. Just over half of the Lexus fleet that couriers players from hotels to the courts is hybrid, up from 20 percent in 2008.

Then Garza ran into the tennis ball can.

For anyone who has ever popped open a fresh can of balls, you know that the new balls live in a pressurized plastic can until you peel back a metal top. The top is held in place by a metal ring attached to the plastic.
It is the metal ring that confounded Garza and everyone she talked to. Because of it, the can couldn't be recycled, she was told. Wilson had already switch the can to about 25 percent recycled plastic, but Garza wanted more. She wanted to recycle the 18,000 to 20,000 cans the U.S. Open plows through in three weeks of play (including qualifying matches).

NRDC told Garza to get in touch with Tom Outerbridge, director of municipal recycling at Sims Metal Management. Soon after, Outerbridge called Garza back on her ever-present Blackberry. "No problem," he told her. Garza was incredulous, but he wasn't kidding. Sims is collecting all the cans and slicing the metal tops off, so the rest of the container can be recycled. As for the balls themselves, they are used in year-round programs at the USTA long after the lights on Arthur Ashe Stadium are dimmed.

USTA has benefited from NRDC's relationships with companies like Sims, which they have partnered with in the past as part of Major League Baseball's Team Greening Program. "We could not have done what we've done so quickly [without the learning curve] from MLB," Garza says. Although the U.S. Open is only a few weeks every year and not an entire season, there were many lessons that transferred, says Allen Hershkowitz, senior scientist and director of sports greening at NRDC. "All of the leagues are energetically embracing this issue," he says, "and there's a lot of work to be done."

There sure is. While Garza has found a solution to recycling tennis ball cans at the U.S. Open, it is not something that the rest of the tennis community can easily embrace. Next year, she says fans will be able to bring their used tennis ball cans for recycling, but time will tell just how willing fans are to cart them all the way to Queens. Eventually, the USTA hopes to have best practices guides available to help local leagues switch to clean energy, buy recycled paper products, and eventually work with local recyclers to recycle the tennis ball cans.

Hershkowitz says that it is the trickle-down effect that makes it so valuable to work with professional sports. "We're interested in the environmental footprint of the event," he says, "but we're mostly interested in the environmental footprint of the supply chain." Will the U.S. Open's efforts eventually lead to a tennis ball can that can be recycled anytime, anywhere? We will have to wait and see.