Another Bounce, a teen-led initiative of the nonprofit Habits of Waste, has set a Guinness World Records title for the most sports balls collected for recycling in one day, organizers announced Sept. 21.
A Guinness World Records adjudicator confirmed that 22,000 sports balls were collected Saturday, Sept. 19, during a community sustainability event at Reed Park in Santa Monica.
The event drew 13 teenagers from the Another Bounce program, along with local student-athletes, families, advocates and community members, to highlight an overlooked source of waste in sports: discarded tennis balls and pickleballs. The program began in February 2026.
Los Angeles City Councilwoman Traci Park attended and praised the teens. "Hundreds of millions of these balls end up in our landfills, in our waterways and on our local public beaches," she said. "I am so impressed with the work that they're doing to remove these from the waste stream."
Community members donated used sports balls, receiving free ice cream for every grocery bag contributed. The event also featured Los Angeles Rams cheerleaders, pickleball matches, arts and crafts by Crayon Collection and live music from DJ Qwess.
The collected balls were loaded into Ridwell trucks and diverted from landfills to be processed for recycling into new balls or other sustainable materials.
The group has been working with local governments to advocate for greater sports-ball recycling infrastructure and policies. On Aug. 24, the city of Malibu invited the teens to submit a draft ordinance addressing sports-ball waste. Mayor Silverstein told the group he would support a formal proposal and encouraged them to prepare draft legislation for city staff.
"This record is a powerful and very visual reminder of the enormous amount of waste generated on a daily basis," said Sheila Morovati, founder and CEO of Habits of Waste. "By diverting more than 22,000 balls from landfill, we're showing what's possible when we rethink the systems we've come to accept as normal. But this is just the beginning."
Habits of Waste is an international nonprofit known for its #CutOutCutlery campaign, which helped ban plastic straws and cutlery in Malibu and led to California's AB 1276. Morovati also founded Crayon Collection and wrote "Imperfect Environmentalist."
For more information, visit HabitsOfWaste.org and AnotherBounce.org.
Edited by SMDP Staff