String recycling

[pvaudio]

Was just thinking about this. It seems quite a waste to throw away strings which are predominately a form of plastic. Nylon is consistently recycled in the form of carpets, and polyester is actually a very great sustainable resource for the textile industry. It goes into clothing quite often, and in fact, Patagonia uses predominately recycled poly in their clothing. Now, I'm not ignorant to the fact that there are different types of each, but it seems wasteful to throw away synthetic strings which may be able to be re-used. Anyone know of a way to recycle used tennis strings?

 

[Up&comer]

Sell them on the bay?

 

[flashfire276]

Heck, someone on e-Bay is selling a bunch of used BB Alu. He states that they're dead, so they would never pop again.

 

[pvaudio]

I knew that would come up :lol:

I'm being serious though, anyone know of any existing resources?

 

[rufusbgood]

Sell them on the bay?

Classic!


xxxxxx

 

[struggle]

i burn mine with the tires.

 

[esgee48]

Goes into the recycle bin with all the other hard plastics. Fact is, you can even recycle soft plastic bags if you wad them together into a large ball so that they don't jam the machines at the recycling centers.

 

[mikeler]

Goes into the recycle bin with all the other hard plastics. Fact is, you can even recycle soft plastic bags if you wad them together into a large ball so that they don't jam the machines at the recycling centers.

Hmm, never thought about this.

 

[Torres]

You wouldn't be able to recycle poly strings as poly strings because of the stress which the strings have already been subjected to would have changed its characteristics beyond the point of no return ie its lost its elasticity.

The only thing you might be able to do would be to potentially melt it down and turn them into plastic spoons or similar items. However, the cost of doing would significantly exceed your final product price, which would make it uneconomical. Also not all plastics are recycleable.

Well, that's what I remember from my High School chemistry....

 

[esgee48]

Polyester can be recycled as can be polyphenols and polyethelene.

 

[mctennis]

Yes, put them in the plastic recycling bin. I've been doing that for years.

 

[mikeler]

Yes, put them in the plastic recycling bin. I've been doing that for years.

Cool, I will start doing that. I always feel bad about all the string I throw away, now at least I know it can be reused.

 

[pvaudio]

Fantastic, good thing I asked. I didn't know because were I running a recycling center, I'd just bin the little blue and black sticks that say Ba o la on them.

 

[Seth]

i burn mine with the tires.

Lol! Hilarious

 

[kwantam]

Don't forget to compost your natural gut strings

 

[sphinx780]

I've always tossed mine in with the plastics.

What the recycling center does with them from there is what I've always wondered about though.

 

[Rjtennis]

Heck, someone on e-Bay is selling a bunch of used BB Alu. He states that they're dead, so they would never pop again.

I saw that too. Why would anyone want used strings?

 

[rufusbgood]

My town recycling dept is only interested in plastics #1 and #2. I think this is fairly typical of municipal recycling in the US. So unless your town is recycling #7 plastics, they don't want your string.

FYI, the packaging that Babolat strings come in I think were intended to be recyclable but that is #5. In my area, Whole Foods has set up bins for recycling #5 plastics which include things like yogurt containers.


You can find these numbers on the bottoms of plastic containers.

For those wondering about the abbreviations:

1. polyethylene terephthalate
2. high density polyethylene
3. poly vinyl chloride
4. low density polyethylene
5. polypropylene
6. polystyrene

Tennis string is usually a composite of polymers so it's got built in impurity when you look at it from a recyclers point of view.