WiTH Collective linked by Isobar New Zealand have premiered the new ‘Sustainaball’. The new biodegradable tennis ball was showcased at the ASB Classic and is a new way to support native tree production and lessen accidental waste.
To celebrate the ASB Classic, the new Sustainaball was featured on the day as the new biodegradable version of a regular tennis ball. While a normal tennis ball can take several hundred years to break down, the ASB Sustainaball has been designed to break down in less than ten years and has the ability to plant a native tree in the process.
ASB head of community and sponsorship Mark Graham said the idea behind the Sustainaball was to solve an issue most Kiwis had experienced when their tennis balls went missing over summer, and to celebrate ASB’s longstanding sponsorship of the ASB Classic.
“Our research shows that every year approximately 325 million tennis balls are produced, which contributes roughly 20,000 tonnes of waste in the form of rubber that is not easily biodegradable,” said Graham.
“We’ve all lost tennis balls at some point in our lives – whether that be playing backyard cricket, tennis, or throwing a ball for the dog – but we wanted to help limit the impact those lost balls have on the environment by creating something that was more sustainable, and might help regenerate our New Zealand native forests at the same time,” said Graham.
ASB’s Sustainaball has been designed in conjunction with Queenstown based 4Design who also developed ASB’s innovative digital money box Clever Kash. The design was then manufactured by a UK-based family-run tennis ball company.
Each ball is made up of 100 percent wool, 95 percent natural rubber and contains seeds from one of several native plant species in a water-soluble sticker, which can germinate under the right conditions as the ball biodegrades.
General Manager of WiTH Collective linked by Isobar New Zealand John Marshall said: “Conversations around sustainability, the environment, and the planet’s future, can sometimes leave people feeling a little overwhelmed. The Sustainaball was created to encourage people to think about the little things that can be done to make a difference.”
Last year, NZ Marketing spoke to brand managers about their driving purpose from the inside out. To read their thoughts on the topic and here what they are doing, read the article here.
