Pro-Pickle announces first compostable pickleball ball

Pickleball has been growing in popularity over the years, resulting in increased production of plastic pickleball balls. Pro-Pickle and Professional Pickleball Partners, a custom manufacturer, saw an opportunity to help reduce the amount of plastic the sport is adding to the landfill by creating the first compostable pickleball ball, Compost-a-Ball.

"We saw it as a need when we began developing the product based on the amount of balls that we saw being thrown away and tossed due to cracking and losing shape," said Angel Morales, chief product officer of Pro-Pickle.

Compost-a-Ball was released during PickleCon. People visited Pro-Pickle's booth during the conference and the company received 600 orders since release.

Pro-Pickle decided to showcase the product during PickleCon because it gave players the opportunity to try the ball within a demo court that was on site.

The ball is an injection molded blend of Soltex polybutene 18, polybutylene succinate, corn starch, rice husk, cactus, avocado peel and algae.

The ball takes 100 days to break down, the rice husk and corn starch are the materials that are offering the most compostable properties. Regular pickleball balls are typically made of low density polyethylene.

Currently the Compost-a-Ball is being manufactured in China, but Pro-Pickle is looking at U.S. production.

Pro-Pickle has been in the pickleball industry for more than two years. At first the company was mainly manufacturing paddles. It added plastic balls last year.

"We still produce a lot of items out of plastic, so we cannot go 100 percent green, but I think it's just a contribution that we can do to society and to the industry, to head in the right direction," Morales said.

Coming up with the ball was harder than Morales and his team anticipated.

The company's core background is working with restaurant chains supplying kids' meal toys, cups, crayon and placemats to companies such as Sonic, Arby's, Chick-Fil-A, Buffalo Wild Wings, Chilis, Applebee's and more.

These restaurant chains have been put under the pressure to switch a lot of their plastic items to alternative materials.

"We had quite a bit of experience with compostable and biodegradable items," Morales said. "So we thought it would be easy to come up with a ball. We were challenged, to say the least."

The ball had to be able to withstand the number of times a pickleball ball would hit the ground and how fast it would be going. The ball hits the ground at a speed of up to 60 mph. The paddle also generates a lot of friction as it makes contact, causing a lot of wear and tear on the ball.

The ball took more than a year to develop, while the company experimented with different blends of materials. Sometimes, when the company thought they were close to full development, the ball wouldn't pass a durability test.

"Once we got the durability aspect down, then the hardness suffered. Then we had to address that. It was neverending, but we finally did it, and we're very happy and proud to introduce it to the marketplace," Morales said.

Compared with regular pickleball balls, the Compost-a-Ball measures up for the amount of hardness and durability. Regular balls can be thrown at 40 to 60 mph 1,000-1,200 times before cracking, the Compost-a-Ball can be thrown 1,500-2,000 times before cracking.

The ball also must meet the criteria of a bounce range, currently the Compost-a-Ball bounces about 10 percent higher, but this is being addressed by Pro-Pickle. But Morales and the company also see this bouncier version as a great alternative for beginner players.

The next version is planned to be released next year and will be rotationally molded instead of injection molded. It will be targeted more as a performance ball.

Compost-a-Ball's appearance does differ slightly compared with regular balls. Its color is a bit duller, and it has a stamp highlighting its biodegradablity.

Pro-Pickle has connections within the manufacturing world that have helped the company be able to sell the Compost-a-Ball at a usual price.

"There is this stereotype in what I call the green world that to make an item that is more friendly to the environment, it has to be more costly, and in some cases, it is," said Morales. "However, one of the challenges that we decided to take on was being able to sell this ball for the same price that we sell our other balls."

In the market, regular balls are priced from $1-$4.50, with beginner balls priced at $1.50-$2.50. Compost-a-Balls are being sold for $2.50 at retail price, with wholesale price being a little bit below that.

So far, the company has allocated about $1 million of materials for this product.