(Tennis Ball Recycling) Victory At the U.S. Open

 

The U.S. Open wraps up today, with Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic facing off in the men’s singles final. While we here at Audubon are divided on which player we’re rooting for (and some are still hung up on Roger Federer’s semifinal defeat), we can all get behind the U.S. Open tennis ball recycling program (though maybe not the rather lame commercial above with Alec Baldwin and tennis-ball puppets...he's so funny on 30 Rock, what went wrong?).

 

During the two-week long competition players go through about 60,000 balls. They’ll be reused for National Tennis Center programming, and then donated to community/youth programs, local animal shelters, and retirement homes. The 20,000 Wilson tennis ball cans will be recycled.

 

Of course, a few balls—the ones hit by tennis stars into the stands—are more likely to end up on lucky fans’ shelves than in Rover’s mouth.