Happy November 15th and Happy National Recycling Day! Ever wondered how the world of tennis could contribute to sustainability? Buckle up for an exciting discussion with Sai Chaudhry, the founder of the RecycleBalls Ambassador Program, as well as Keaton Dassanayake and Heena Bharti. They all share a passion for tennis and creating a more sustainable future around the sport. We're serving up a conversation centered around RecycleBalls, a non-profit behind this initiative that is reducing environmental impact by recycling tennis balls, proof that every small action matters in the journey to a sustainable future.
Our journey doesn't stop there. We navigate the tumultuous journey from professional tennis to the corporate world, where I share my story and transition from the court to the telecommunications industry. Immerse yourself in stories of resilience, lessons learned, and heartfelt advice for young or older tennis players. Heena, Keaton, and Sai also let us in on their love for tennis, revealing its profound role in their lives.
As our conversation evolves, we examine the innovative potential of recycling in the world of tennis. Imagine turning used tennis balls into apparel, shoes, or a tennis court! We explore the role of sustainability and how individuals and organizations can contribute to a greener and better future. Gear up for a unique perspective on tennis, recycling, and sustainability in this riveting episode that promises a fresh perspective on making a positive impact on our planet. Remember, change begins with one recycled tennis ball at a time.
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I realized that there was like a big gap in like the youth presence in sustainability and the environment regarding tennis, and recycle balls filled a big hole in like tennis recycling with recycling tennis balls, but there was no youth presence. So I was happy to become the founder and the chairman of the Ambassador Program. I'm excited to see how our program keeps evolving. On November 15th is National Recycling Day, so we are starting a whole brand for that with a hashtag to encourage more recycling in tennis and we hope to be leading the tennis recycling outreach for National Recycling Day.
Klara:
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Grand Slam Journey Podcast, where I, together with my guests, discuss various topics related to finding our passion and purpose, maximizing our potential sports, life after sports and transitioning from one chapter of our lives to the next, growing our skills and leadership, and whatever we decide to put our minds into. Today, november 15th, is a National Recycling Day and I'm releasing a special episode together with the Recycle Balls Ambassador team. Today's conversation is slightly different than my previous ones. Instead of me interviewing my guest, I let my guests interview me. Well, I couldn't help it and I asked a few questions back. Recycle balls is a non-profit with mission to help save the planet by reusing and recycling all tennis balls. If you don't know about recycle balls, please go to the episode notes to check out their website RecycleBallsorg. If you are someone who listens to my podcast regularly, you may recognize the name I had, aaron Cunningham, on the pot back in the spring, episode number 31, where we talk about the circular economy of tennis balls and the intersection of tennis sustainability and scaling a mission with social impact. Recycle balls are making a difference. They have saved over 12 million balls from landfills and are coming up with some amazing use cases to give tennis balls in second life. They are truly creating a community around this mission, where they have over 200,000 individuals helping them make a difference.
Klara:
My today's guests are Sai Heena and Keaton, young tennis enthusiasts with a big passion for sustainability. I don't know who was more inspired from this episode, whether some of my stories resonated with them or whether I was more impressed with how wise and aware they are. If our youth looks more like Sai Hina and Keaton, I am very optimistic about the future of our humanity. During this episode, we cover our passion for tennis. I share some of my journey and lessons I have learned and, of course, we talk about the recyclables, their mission, some of the progress they have been making, the role of the ambassadors team, how to become part of it and, of course, sustainability.
Klara:
If you enjoyed this episode, I want to ask you to please share it with someone you believe may enjoy this as well. Consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and don't forget to subscribe. I'm your host, clara Egocova. Thank you for tuning in, and now I bring you conversation with the Recycle Bowls Ambassador team, sai Hina and Keaton. Enjoy the lesson and don't forget to recycle your tennis balls Well, happy Tuesday everyone. I'm here with my amazing Recycle Bowls Ambassadors team, joined by Hina, keaton, sai and Josh, and we're going to talk about all things tennis, recyclables and the mission behind recyclables and, I guess, our passion for the sport and other things that we feel like we want to touch based on. Do you want to maybe do a quick round of introductions? I have Hina here on the left top. Do you want to start Hina?
Heena:
Yes, I can start. My name is Hina and I'm a sophomore in high school. I'm currently located in California, near the Bay Area, and I learned about this program through my coach. She told me about it and she really recommended me to join because she wanted this to be something that would help our team as well as our school.
Klara:
Oh, fantastic, we're in the Bay area. I just recently moved from San Jose to Austin, so I'm curious where you live.
Heena:
I'm from Bolero. Where is that actually? North Bay area?
Klara:
Okay great Keaton, you want to go next?
Keaton:
I can go next. You want to hear me okay.
Klara:
Yes, perfect.
Keaton:
Okay, hi, my name is Keaton. I'm a senior in high school right now. I'm located around Dallas, texas. I go to school in Richardson, a small suburb just outside of Dallas. I've been playing tennis for forever. It's been a family of generational sport. My grandpa played and my mom played, so, logically, I had to pick it up too. I got injured this past year and I've been recovering, so college tennis has been put out the window. But I've had a newfound love for the environment through some classes I've been taking in high school and I thought if I can't play the game for forever, I might as well give my best to it. And if this is the next step in my journey towards getting it out there and improving the game, and not just the tennis aspect, then that's why I picked this program and joined the ambassador program.
Klara:
Wow, love it. Thanks for sharing that and I commend you on staying connected to the community despite you being injured. I feel sometimes it's so hard, especially when you can't play the sport you love so much, to still be connected to it, but it seems like you're finding a mission and a way to stay with it and help recycle more balls, so good job to you.
Keaton:
Thank you.
Klara:
Sai.
Sai:
Hi, yeah, so my name's Sai, I'm a current junior and I live in Pittsburgh, pennsylvania, so, ghost Steelers, I founded the Recycle Balls Ambassador Program back in January because I kind of realized that there was like a big gap in like the youth presence in sustainability and the environment regarding tennis, and recycle balls filled a big hole in like tennis recycling with recycling tennis balls, but there was no youth presence. So I was happy to kind of become like the founder and the chairman of the Ambassador Program and excited to see how our program keeps evolving.
Klara:
Amazing and congrats on starting with that idea. There always got to be somebody first, so good job on that.
Sai:
Thank you.
Klara:
I'm actually curious if we have some time, would each of you share what do you enjoy about tennis and the sport in general? I think Keaton shared a little bit how we found it through some of his relatives, but I'm always curious to learn how you discovered the sport and what do you enjoy about it.
Sai:
Yeah, sure I can go. So my dad, he used to play. My dad grew up in India and back there it wasn't as like as much of a presence as much as in the United States. He used to just play at a school, but his school was pretty far away so he didn't play that frequently. But me, growing up in the United States, I used to play both basketball and tennis. But it wasn't until probably a couple years ago, like COVID, that I started seriously playing tennis and I kind of like just fell in love with it playing tournaments, playing every day, so just like naturally.
Klara:
Love it.
Keaton:
I can go next. Like I said, like my grandpa was the original tennis player in our family and my mom played a little bit in college, but more just for fun than anything. And yeah, just growing up it was just always me and my brother and tennis was the one game we kind of bonded over. And as he went through school and eventually to high school and started playing team tennis, you know I saw more of that side of the game and that was kind of a big driver for me. I did play tournaments, I competed for the longest time, but my number one goal was to play team tennis. I mean, if it was at the college level that would be amazing, but my goal is just to be the best I could, even at the high school level, and just be surrounded by other people who love this sport. So that's kind of my whole driver for it.
Klara:
Fantastic and good job on the drive. I think what you mentioned wanting to be the best you can be at any level or where you at is actually the best mindset we all can have, and if we focus on it, I find, through had life and whatever you do, dead mindset will carry you forward with really anything, whether it's tennis, helping to scale the mission of recyclables or any other journey you may find after that. But here, last but not least, tell us I started playing because of my sister.
Heena:
She started in high school but I actually started when I was like around eight. She kind of forced me actually into a program for young kids to play tennis and learn about responsibilities. But as I got into high school I learned like I really enjoyed this sport and I just keep on wanting to get better at it and the adrenaline of playing tournaments or just doing any matches keeps me going and keeps me wanting to play Wow.
Klara:
Fantastic. I believe we were chatting a little bit with Sae before too, and I'm impressed how you all are handling the mental toughness of the sport that early on. I always find that was the most challenging thing for me when I was growing up holding up my nerves and learning how to be excited for the matches and tournaments and important points. So good job to that.
Sai:
So I have a question for you. I like right on your website that you went to an academy for tennis. So, like the place where I go, so many of my friends they like go to school just for like three hours. Then they play from like 10 to like seven. At night I play from like two o'clock to like sevens because, like, I go to school for most of the day. But can you just tell me a little bit about that feeling or like how that worked for you?
Klara:
Yeah, so I grew up in the Czech Republic, and back then it's been a while since I moved, more than 20 years now when I joined the tennis academy it was a little bit different than it is now, in the way that there wasn't any homeschool per se, and so you had to be qualified to be good enough within certain standings in the Czech Republic to justify what they called individual plan. And so the individual plan allowed you to eventually not go to school at all. It allowed us to train full time, and so you would have trainings in the morning. Usually you would get up at 7am. You'd be practicing for about 8 to 10 or 10 30. Then you have a break for lunch, you go take a shower, refuel, get some rest, and then you have afternoon practice from about one to three pm or two to four, and after that you have conditioning for about an hour hour and a half, depending on the program. You do some extra cook and activities. You can get some additional agility things or massage, and then you go have dinner. You go sleep and rinse or repeat.
Klara:
So that used to be the program that I was in, and typically the school entailed. Every two or three months we would have to go back to our professors or teachers and schedule exams with them and I would study on my own. So I would have the books and I would borrow notes from my classmates and I would study probably for about two to three weeks and get quits over all of the material that we went over through that period of two to three months. And so I guess the weird thing for me that your question asked or you're touching on I never really knew how to go to school until I was in college and so, interesting thing, when I came to college in the US, I actually had to learn how to ghost it in class because I hadn't really gone and had to sit in classes before. I've been used to studying on my own from books and notes, and so there was an interesting, I guess, in some ways shock and adjustments that I had to make.
Sai:
Yeah, that's amazing, like the maturity to be like studying on your own at such a young age. That takes me like my parents have to force me to, even now.
Klara:
Yes, I think that can certainly be hard, but I think, if you put it into perspective, I really was there to play tennis, and without good tennis performance I wouldn't be allowed to have this individual plan, and without good grades I really wouldn't be allowed to play tennis because the professors would be looking at me. Well, maybe she's not that smart, maybe she shouldn't be in the school, and so I think the two balanced each other really well as well. As, I have to say, my upbringing when I was a little kid, I grew up a lot with my grandparents, and I remember my grandma always taught me the first thing when you come from school is you do your homework, and so she drilled me for about five, six, seven years and after a while it stuck with you, and so I still remember my grandma the first thing when you come home from school is to do your homework, and then you can do whatever you feel like doing.
Keaton:
I have another question for you. Actually, I was reading up on your LinkedIn and just about you in general and you played. Do you want to say that you to your LinkedIn, correct? And then did you also play in the WTA?
Klara:
I played a little bit before joining college. If you're growing up in Europe, you typically don't have the school program that you have here in the US, and so in many ways it's not really natural for us to be wanting to play for university, because that reality, especially when I was growing up, wasn't really present. It's something more that you may discover later on, but it's an afterthought, and so if you really want to play tennis seriously and you are in Europe, you typically want to play with the mindset that you want to play the tour and play professionally. So I grew up in an academy with the intention to play professional tennis, to become a professional tennis player. So I've gone through kind of the natural circuit through the what I call ETA, european Tennis Association, the ITFs 18 and under, and then started playing some of the lower level WTAs when I was around 17. So I played the tour and tried playing the tour for about three years.
Klara:
I had some ranking when I was 20 and I went to university, but it wasn't great enough, and so actually it's one of the reasons why I have decided to get with my parents that it might be good to just try college.
Klara:
I didn't want to actually join. I wanted to continue to play because I felt like I was just getting the hang of competing. But we have some family situation also that happened and change some things in our lives, and so my mom encouraged me just go there for six months, just try it, and if you don't like it you can always come back. And today there was one of the best decisions I've ever had, and so maybe the learning is even though there's something that you may not want to do especially when it's things that you don't know what to expect you just take a leap, you try, experiment, you give it your best and you see how it turns out, and maybe in a few months your opinion may change, and so you never truly know what you may and may not enjoy until you try it and experiment with it.
Keaton:
That's really interesting. I mean I think a lot of people have this kind of mindset. To myself is like, when I look at what I want to do with my future, I have these kind of set goals and I think when that gets interrupted it's hard to figure out, like okay, what's my next step here? So the six month period thing is really interesting. I mean it kind of gives you like a hey, like not everything is set in stone and things shift, things change, and it's it's how you take what you've been given and what you do with it, and I mean it clearly worked out well for you.
Keaton:
So that's it's nice to hear it's especially for us, since we're so young.
Klara:
So thank you, keezan, and just to comment what you shared, I totally respect goal setting. I think it's so important and in some ways wisdoms are driven into achieving goals and setting goals and creating a journey and a path for us. And it could be really hard if you can't see what's next, but typically in those moments when you just pause and you look around and keep your eyes open and look through the lens of opportunity, you may see so many things that you may not even have seen before, and so it's really just being open to exploring and seeing what works, and I think a lot of that has served me well, even throughout my life. Even my transition from after college to telecommunication, which is not an industry I had all planned or wanted to be in. It was totally serendipitous and accidental and it was one of the best things that had happened to me.
Keaton:
So we've talked a little bit now about where you've come from, like your journey and through tennis, and how that's been your passion. But you bring up your profession. So one question I had for you was how did you transition from more your tennis mindset to your professional field and what, like ideologies, maybe from the game, have helped you in this part of your life?
Klara:
That's a big question. I can talk about that probably for hours, and just before I start talking about it, I want to start with prefacing going from being a tennis player, even though you know that the tennis college career were end. You never truly know what it will feel like until it ends, and it was truly the hardest period of my life that I've probably had gone through, and so the switch of finding something that I was able to be busy with was really helpful. I finished my college in May and was lucky enough to find a job right away, and I just started working and being an immigrant and needing a visa, I didn't have that many options, and so you take the first option that comes, and really what I wanted to find is to find something else I can be great at.
Klara:
I've invested so many years and effort and time including my family invested effort and time into tennis, and I find it was something that at that point, I saw that didn't work out, and so I wanted to find something else I can be great at, and so, through tennis, it teaches you all the hard work, consistency, persistence, showing up even though you're not feeling great, showing up even though your timing may be off by always showing up trying to perform the best you can that day with the energy you have and giving the best results.
Klara:
And I think taking that mindset early on in my career to my next job really helped me grow, at least through my earlier career, because I didn't know anything about telecommunications and you live at retail just from my family, running small business in Czech Republic, and so it's really diving in, learning from others, asking questions and giving your full effort, especially early on in my career, is something that helped carry me forward and drive success early on, and I find many people are typically quite helpful, especially for early career entrance.
Klara:
And so if you show up with the willingness to learn and drive and always giving your best, there'll be others who will recognize the effort and then help lift you up and open other doors. And so I have to say I've been privileged to come across some amazing mentors and people who became sponsors in my organization that guided me through the next steps and helped me grow. And so that journey literally unfolded in a way that, even going to your early point, keaton thinks I probably wouldn't have foreseen and thinks I couldn't even plan my career because I had no clue what will be the next step or the journey.
Sai:
So follow up question for young tennis players on their tennis path, whether their goal is to go pro, to get to the collegiate level or just to play on their high school team. What is the most important piece of advice you would give any of?
Klara:
them. I mean number one you got to show up. Tennis is such a deaf sport, and so the discipline and consistency and showing up every day, even though you may not feel like it at the end, will drive success. And so go on the court and many times you're sore and you're tired and you rather feel like maybe sleeping in and you feel like you can't give it your best. But going there and still doing the best of what's your best is that day you will not be always able to perform in your best by giving the best out of the energy that you have. That day will make a difference for sure, and so learning how to always give the best from your energy packet that you have for that day is important.
Klara:
You all mentioned a little bit the mental skills, and I think those are so important in tennis. I believe that almost anyone can learn the game, how to play the game, anybody can learn technique, anybody can learn to run fast, but learning the strategy of the game and learning how to calm your brain down and how to make it perform at the best level is very, very critical if you want to achieve your success. And that is also very, very personal, so it's really hard for somebody to guide you through it, because you have to get to know your own mind and you have to know how to build the bridges within the way your mind works to come from restriction to opportunities, to come from chaos and anxiety and stress to calmness and thriving on pressure. So the mental toughness and learning how to navigate your mind through stressful situation is really important. And I think the third thing, you have to have the right environment, and I call it typically the support system, and this is even me interviewing a bunch of former athletes, some of the best ones, perhaps across all of the professions.
Klara:
Nobody, not even the best tennis player in the world, can be successful alone.
Klara:
You always need a team that will help you grow and thrive, and so be mindful of the people you choose to have within your circle, and it can be a small circle, it doesn't have to be large.
Klara:
Everybody's different and everybody structures their what I call support circles differently. It can be your parents, your grandparents, your best friends, your coaches, any and all of the above and probably more options. But who are the people that you have around and who hold your back and who help lift you up when you're down and who help push you to the next level when even you don't believe in it, and who help believe in you when you don't. Those are the hardest parts, because it's very easy to feel happy and be successful when all is going well. But any journey, especially during this journey, is very difficult and it requires a lot of time and effort and the downs will come, and so, especially in the downs, it's very helpful to have people around you that can help you back on your feet and encourage you to go back up and continue working hard and don't give up.
Sai:
Yeah, I think that's so important. Like for me, I just have like these, like mini goals, like if I lose the first point of the match and I'm going to lose, like it's like silly stuff, but like, just like things that like you think of obviously not true but they kind of like hinder your mental ability, which then hinders your physical ability, and I think, just like blocking out your thoughts, just to play is like the most important thing.
Klara:
Yes, I feel like you know so much more than I knew when I was your age.
Sai:
So good job, you're already ahead of me say I'm saying all it, but then when I'm on the court, I think something completely different.
Klara:
Well, it's always need to start somewhere. So I've been saying it out loud it will help, and then with time, you need to figure out how to find your routines and little things on the court, and they're almost like work around. Sometimes you try one thing and you would think it never works. And it does, and so you experiment with it again. So a lot of things I feel like on the court is finding what works and really exploring your physical and mental capabilities and how you get yourself in your mind to where you perform the best, because that's really, I think, important and that's one of the skills that will carry over with you for the rest of your life. If you can learn how to control your mind on the court, I guarantee you you can learn how to control your mind when you're having a meeting with a CEO and their executives. It's almost exactly the same feeling.
Sai:
So we keep asking you questions. Do you have questions about us or organization?
Klara:
Yeah, I had your CEO, Erin, on the podcast. I know she's fantastic and so good job and kudos to the mission that you're driving, but tell me a little bit more about recyclable. Still, I know you all have grown quite a bit since I talked to Erin and the mission that the ambassador program is driving.
Sai:
Yeah. So the ambassador program was built to foster youth participation. So our main goal is to increase our youth participation and we thought the easiest way to do this was through social media, because obviously we're our kids. But Instagram, tech talk and YouTube One of our first actions was to create a tech talk and to start posting more on our Instagram and I think this probably got our quickest growth in ambassadors. When we first launched a program back in April and like almost instantly we got around 20 to 25 ambassador responses, which was amazing. When we started I was scared we weren't even going to get one, so I thought that was amazing.
Sai:
Once we got the program going, we wanted to have a place where ambassadors learn but also help their environment and their community. So we've had some great experiences with the ambassador community and back in April we had the USTA sustainability consultant on our meeting and we kind of got to interview her and talk to her while making content that we could then post for increasing the growth of recyclable. So we thought that was a great opportunity for the ambassadors and for the overall brand and we've just been trying to replicate that type of success multiple times over to kind of foster place for your ambassadors to grow and for the program of the recyclable to grow In our upcoming days. We are currently working on the national on November 15 is national recycling day, so we are starting a whole brand for that with a hashtag to encourage more recycling in tennis, and we hope to be leading the tennis recycling outreach for national recycling day.
Klara:
Wow, love it. Great job Since, like you all, have been busy driving the mission. Congrats. What are you at right now as far as bowls recycled?
Sai:
Yeah, so I believe we hit a milestone a couple months ago of two million balls, I believe, but I know that there are balls coming in every single day to the warehouse. The warehouse is in Connecticut, which I've not had the pleasure to go to I live in Pittsburgh but I've seen, like videos and clips of it that can happily share, of balls just coming in and being reused for a second life. Oh yeah, josh said more than 12 million. I'm mistaken. I'm sorry, more than two million this year. That's what I meant. Yeah, my apologies.
Klara:
Excellent, and so anybody who listens to this in this thing about oh, this is really interesting perhaps has a passion for tennis and wants to think about how to help scaling the mission for cycling balls. What's the best way to become an ambassador?
Sai:
Are you talking about what they can do for their community or how they can join the ambassador program?
Klara:
Yeah, maybe you can touch base on both.
Sai:
actually say so one of the first things we asked ambassadors do is to check out their local clubs and go see do you have the noticeable recycle balls boxes there? If you don't, we'd love for ambassadors just go, maybe talk to the tennis director or the club director and just let them know what recycle balls is, because it's a cheap box, that is obviously good for the environment and it's a great way to promote sustainability in your club. So we found very much success in just having ambassadors go to their clubs and share. But for actually joining the ambassador program, it's really easy. On the recycle balls website you can press the take action button and right there is the ambassador program option and just once you press on that there's an easy form right on the website and then I or Aaron would reach out to you and then we'd have an introductory meeting and then you'd be welcome to join any of our meetings.
Klara:
Excellent. Do you have a goal of how many ambassadors you would like to add to the team, or is there a specific limit that you don't want to overreach?
Sai:
So we had some early goals but we hit them. We wanted to get 20 ambassadors by the end of summer and we were well over 40. And now we have around 60 ambassadors in the email list and every single meeting of ours has a good like 10 to 15. And then obviously some kids can't attend or are away. But a lot of ambassadors that constantly help and we're very glad by the constant support by our ambassadors.
Klara:
Good job. That seems like you have more people than you aspire to and seems like the list is growing, so congrats, you are doing something good.
Sai:
Yeah, we didn't want to kind of like hinder anyone from joining, like we thought anyone can make a difference. So that was one of our main guidelines that no ambassadors should be turned down.
Klara:
Fantastic. Now that we talked about the ambassador, I'm curious what made you join the program? I guess I started it so he saw the opportunity to start the whole program. But, keith and Hina, how did you learn about it and what inspired you to become part of it?
Keaton:
For me, my dad. He's a wastewater engineer, so he cleans water. So when you open your tap, all the drinking water that comes out, you know that's kind of what he deals with. And his whole deal is environmental, not only like okay, we're creating overall goals for clean drinking water for people, but it's also now how does the sewage that we create affect the environment and how do we tackle that side of it?
Keaton:
And I've always been found captivated by the work he does and how it's his job kind of it has a purpose. It's not just I'm going to go make money, it's I'm going to do something that matters. So that kind of sparked the interest for me with the more environmental side of things. And it's actually, you know, kind of affected not only my participation in the ambassador program but also with my future career. I'm looking at more chemical engineering and that kind of stuff. So but yeah, I mean it kind of gave a little off topic, but my main reason for joining the ambassador program was to take something I love, I mean, which is the game of tennis, and look at it from a different viewpoint and try to incorporate the environment and sustainability aspects and just overall, how can I do my part as a tennis player to help the environment and I just thought the ambassador program was a really cool and unique way to bring light to that part of the game.
Klara:
Love it and love your connection between the mission and the game, as well as your ambition, keaton being a chemical engineer and playing college tennis. Good job and kudos. I'm cheering for you.
Heena:
Thank you. I've always wanted to do my part in protecting the environment and helping the environment, and just learning about this through my coach made me really want to join and be an ambassador, because I saw all the things that I could do as a tennis player to help and help my community and make it a better place for the youth like me.
Klara:
Love it. You are such achievers and drivers and really connected to the mission and obviously enthusiastic about the sport. It seems like a great combination and if there's more youth that look like all three of you, I'm very optimistic about the planet and what you all are building. So good job. Any other thoughts or questions we want to catch on?
Sai:
team so obviously we are doing our part, but you've seen so much of the tennis world, and not just the United States, but also in Europe, so what advice could you give us as we work to tackle the issue of recycling in tennis? What is some gap or something that could be improved from your opinion?
Klara:
Wow, I feel like I have played tennis for a long time, but you all three know way more about it than I do.
Klara:
I think I've learned about their cycle bowls through Erin just a while back I want to think maybe six months ago, and I know we had Erin and I had few conversations before, but I was really impressed by the mission and in some ways I'm embarrassed that I never thought about the millions of tennis bowls that I have hit in my life and the life cycle, what happened to them after they were done serving so truly it was a little bit of embarrassment that I never given it a thought, and so I'm saying you all are actually ahead of me, that you all are thinking about it way earlier on in your life than I have, and I'm certainly not an expert here, but what I have been hearing in my conversation with Erin there's obviously so much more opportunity to scale this, even within the US only.
Klara:
I know you're making some great traction in Canada, and so if you look at just at America's and the rise of tennis now, especially during the pandemic, which has been fun and very cool to watch, tennis is becoming more and more popular sport I feel like really bringing this top of mind for everyone could be just the first thing and driving their awareness and, as you all are, scaling the mission of getting the boxes in pretty much every single tennis facility and country club.
Klara:
Hopefully we can get there Really in Europe. When I was growing up, we never had programs like this and so I am not even aware of really all of the recycling efforts that are being done there. So I have lived in the US now for almost 20 years so I have to say I almost know, sadly, the US better than I know my own country, czech Republic, now and what's happening in Europe. But I believe, if I'm not wrong, erin is perhaps in touch with some of the facilities and programs that are being run and driven in Europe and scaling the mission, and seems like you all are taking notes and exchanging notes to see how you all can drive this mission together. Is that true?
Sai:
Do any of you know more about it.
Sai:
I remember a while back, one thing that we discussed kind of like reaching into was more of like clothing, like could we make the tennis ball felt into like shoe cloth? And like there's actually a company in Spain that has already started with that and we thought that was really cool, and like there's just so many new opportunities with just a tennis ball, which is like so small that so many different companies are doing so. It's just like exciting to see and a lot of them are in Europe, which is basically like the founders of tennis. Obviously like Europe versus world is a tennis tournament. Europe is like the center of tennis in the world.
Klara:
Yeah, I think there is a lot of innovation that is and will be coming up for recycling. I definitely see it as a trend. One of the great examples that Erin talked about is even resurfacing courts with some of the rubber that's left over from the tennis balls. So it's really cool full cycle that he used the balls to actually put it back into the court. Obviously, clothing or shoes is really interesting. I do know the big brands that I think of Nike and Adidas have missions of fully recycling clothes. So I wonder maybe you all got to reach out to them and say they want to collaborate and create some cool tennis apparel or shoes from your cycle tennis balls.
Sai:
Yeah, one thing that was really cool was this past summer, at the Toronto Open, recycle balls actually donated balls and they built a court just out of recycled tennis balls, which is exactly like what you were talking about and a great way to promote not just recycling but also the recycle balls organization.
Klara:
Yeah, how cool. It's a full life cycle. You create tennis court out of your tennis balls.
Keaton:
So we have one more question for you, Looking at your LinkedIn and we were all been doing our research in preparation for this. But correct me if I'm wrong, but you work at Apple, correct?
Klara:
Yes, yes, I do.
Keaton:
One of our questions was what does it look like to advocate for sustainability at large companies like Apple, and how can we all do our part to move organizations we are a part of for it in the right direction?
Klara:
That's such an important question. I feel privileged to work at Apple and I've actually had mindfully look for roles at Apple because of the values that Apple has, and so sustainability is definitely one of the big areas that we focus on. It's not just sustainability of our own products, but also sustainability of the partners and vendors who use or manufacturers of our own product, and so it has been actually quite easy here, because an Apple people believe that we lead with our values, and obviously sustainability and recycling is one of the top values that we take into account through everything, even designing our products. It's inherent part of the company, and so standing up for what you believe, being pioneer in what you believe and leading with your values, I think as far as they're authentic, I believe your authenticity will always be hurt. If you believe in what you're saying, you just have to continue working towards it and working in the mission. And, as I said earlier, kiten, you may not always have a path or roadmap to what the next step is, but if you're really passionate about it, the path will open up for you, and so I don't know what it's like in some of the other organizations.
Klara:
I do see that more and more organizations are recognizing that sustainability is important, because currently we only have one planet that we can live on. As far as I know, we're trying to figure out if we can live on other planets, but that's probably quite far away, and so I think it's just socially responsible to figure out how we can keep this planet healthy and happy, because if it isn't, none of us will be. We can obviously all see it with some of the not so happy weather events and weather changes, including global warming, obviously driven by high temperatures. You're in Texas, so I'm sure you know what I'm talking about here.
Heena:
Yeah, we feel pretty bad.
Klara:
Happening everywhere in the world, including Czech Republic. The weather there has been changing drastically ever since I moved from Czech, so these unusual weather tragedies, they seem to become more and more common, and so hopefully everyone, or every corporation, is thinking about how they can build more sustainable future, whatever their product is and whatever they're designing and I think that may look different for different organizations based on what they're building and creating.
Keaton:
That's awesome. Thank you for your input.
Klara:
Well, thank you for your time and the conversation. It's been really fun getting to know you and hearing about your passion for tennis and recycling and sustainability and driving the mission forward.
Sai:
Yeah, thank you so much, Clara, for taking the time to connect here with this group of Recycle Ball Ambassadors. We look forward to hearing more from your podcast, the Grand Slam Journey. And, as we come to the end of the year, don't forget to advocate for recycling in your tennis club and support Recycle Ball's mission to end the waste of what tennis is causing, because a sustainable future is better for everyone and, we hope, to give tennis balls a second life. So thank you so much.
Klara:
If you enjoyed this episode, I want to ask you to please do two things that would help me greatly. One, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting platform that you use to listen to this episode. Two, please share this podcast with a friend who you believe might enjoy it as well. It is a great way to remind someone you care about them by sharing a conversation they might be interested in. Thank you for listening.
