Local woman starts pickleball recycling effort

SALT LAKE CITY — A local pickleball player has started a program to recycle old or unwanted pickleballs.

Brenda Koga has been a longtime pickleball player at Fairmont Park. After she heard about pickleball recycling, she wanted to do that here in Salt Lake City. 

Koga has been collaborating with community members, the Salt Lake City Parks Department, and Momentum Recycling to set up a pickleball recycling program.

Momentum Recycling CEO John Lair says more than 500 million pickleballs are produced every year. But, most traditional recycling centers won’t recycle them.

“Brenda reached out to us, about recycling pickleballs, especially giving the growing popularity of the sport we just thought it was the perfect thing for us to get involved in,” Lair said. 

Now there’s a receptacle at Fairmont Park. When it’s full, Koga ships them to a non-profit where old pickleballs can recycled to make new pickleballs. They are also made into a variety of other products.

“She was going to start a program collecting them, and she had already communicated with the pickleball manufacturer and arranged for them to take the pickleballs back so that they could be remanufactured back into new pickleballs.”

How it works is pretty simple. 

“They get put in the recycling bin, and after there’s enough of them to warrant a shipment… Brenda packages them up, she ships them back to the manufacturer,” Lair said. 

So far, the program collected and shipped back 200 pickleballs. Lair says he would love to expand this program in the future. 

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