Local High School Student Tackles Tennis Ball Recycling

Did you know that most tennis balls are used only a couple of times and then end up in a landfill?

Shocked by the sheer number of tennis balls that go into the trash, local Northern California high school student Rio Krauss decided to tackle this problem and started his own individually managed tennis ball recycling program during the pandemic.

“I am into environmentalism and growing up in California has made me so aware and appreciative of nature,” Krauss said. “It is scary to see the impact of climate change and how it will restrict and affect us in the future. Because of that, I knew I wanted to take action.”

After learning about recycling in his environmental science class and seeing how many tennis balls his dad went through as a daily player, he thought about how he could make a difference.

Krauss found the organization recycleballs.org, which is a non-profit that helps the planet by reusing and recycling tennis balls, and decided to build his own local recycling tennis ball program in San Ramon, CA. He started by working with his high school and going to local coaches throughout the area and collecting their used tennis balls and sending them into the organization to recycle.  

Once he gained some traction, Krauss expanded his program and contacted the city of San Ramon to put recycleballs.org bins across different courts in the area.

And what started as a way to do some good during the pandemic, has now turned into a program with 15 bins across the city of San Ramon and over 8,000 tennis balls being recycled so far.

Each week Krauss manages all aspects of the program and goes to the different bins throughout the city to pick the balls up and ship them to recycleballs.org to be recycled.

And though the program was slow to be accepted in the community, Krauss stayed motivated in his mission and his hard work has not gone unnoticed.

He recently was recognized by the City of San Ramon and the San Ramon Valley School District with the Outstanding Teen Citizenship Award for his leadership in the community.

“I was not expecting anything in return and I didn’t need an award to put value on my project, but it feels good to be recognized and bring other people into the cause,” Krauss shared. “It has been great to spread the word and have other people in the community be inspired and help me work on this program.”

And while Krauss is a high school senior this year, he plans to keep the program going after he graduates by passing on the torch to his younger siblings or other underclassmen. In the meantime, Krauss is currently working on fundraising for the program to build off of the momentum he has gained across the city so far and will continue making the planet a little cleaner one tennis ball at a time.