{"id":1066,"date":"2024-09-23T07:52:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T07:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/?p=1066"},"modified":"2024-09-29T04:03:00","modified_gmt":"2024-09-29T04:03:00","slug":"belgian-eco-designer-gives-used-tennis-balls-new-purpose-as-chairs-than-landfill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/belgian-eco-designer-gives-used-tennis-balls-new-purpose-as-chairs-than-landfill\/","title":{"rendered":"300 million tennis balls made each year taking 400 years to decompose – Belgian designer turns them into comfy chairs instead"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(quote)

\n\nIn the last two years, tennis has taken over our closets (court-appropriate garb can be found everywhere from Skims to Miu Miu),<\/a> our screens (who could forget Zendaya\u2019s turn as the tennis protog\u00e9-turned-elite-coach Tashi Duncan in \u201cChallengers\u201d) and now \u2014 our living rooms.

\n\nAt least that is the hope of Belgian eco-designer Mathilde Wittock, who fashions bespoke furniture from discarded tennis balls. Wittock\u2019s sleek, modernist chaise longues are entirely cushionless \u2014 save for the padding of 500 precisely arranged tennis balls. Her one meter-long benches are similarly sparse, with some 270 balls being both stylish and structurally substantial.

\n\n\u201cIt takes around 24 different manufacturing steps to (make) a tennis ball, which is around five days. Then it has such a short lifespan,\u201d Wittock told CNN in a video call from Brussels. \u201cI was looking into tennis balls because I played tennis myself, so I know there is a lot of waste.\u201d

\n\nAround 300 million tennis balls are produced each year \u2014 and almost all of them end up in landfills, taking over 400 years to decompose. The US Open, which ended at the weekend, goes through around 70,000 each year, with Wimbledon not far behind at 55,000. Wittock estimates the lifecycle of a ball stands at just nine games, depending on the level of tennis being played. \u201cEven if they are contained in their box, if the box has been opened the gas inside the tennis balls will be released over time,\u201d she said. \u201c(Eventually) they will get flat and you\u2019ll have to throw them away.\u201d

\n\nBut creation isn\u2019t the only goal. In fact, more important to Wittock is how her pieces are destroyed. \u201cI\u2019m an eco designer,\u201d she said. \u201cEco design is about circularity. You can use great materials that are low carbon emission or recycled, but you need to think of the end cycle. If it\u2019s not a circle, and if you can\u2019t reuse (the elements) into something else, it\u2019s not eco design. It\u2019s even worse, because it\u2019s new materials.\u201d At the end of her furniture\u2019s life, Wittock can de-assemble the hundreds of tennis balls (which are woven together without glue) to be recycled, where the fuzz is burnt off and the rubber shredded to make bouncy playground mats.

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\n\nImage courtesy Rodolphe de Brabandere<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(quote) In the last two years, tennis has taken over our closets (court-appropriate garb can be found everywhere from Skims to Miu Miu), our screens (who could forget Zendaya\u2019s turn as the tennis protog\u00e9-turned-elite-coach Tashi Duncan in \u201cChallengers\u201d) and now \u2014 our living rooms. At least that is the hopeRead More →<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,7,8,12],"tags":[45,21,49,139,67,26,27,140,58,53,69],"class_list":["entry","author-wcp-art","post-1066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-art-and-poem","category-figures-and-facts","category-health-and-lifestyle","category-life-nature-society","category-us-and-world","tag-art","tag-business","tag-design","tag-eco","tag-environment","tag-facts","tag-figures","tag-green","tag-lifestyle","tag-sports","tag-sustainable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldculturepictorial.com\/wcp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}