Every tennis player has been there. A bag full of dead balls that have long lost their bounce, sitting in the corner of your garage or at the bottom of your court bag. You know you should do something with them. You just never know what.
Good news: there are actually some solid options. Here are five things you can do with old tennis balls that aren't just throwing them in the trash.
Quick summary
Dog shelters love them as chew toys
Cut them open and use as furniture leg protectors
Toss a few in the dryer with bulky loads
School PE programs use them for drills and games
Recycle them properly through BallBack
Donate them to a dog shelter
Dead tennis balls still have plenty of life left in them as dog toys. Shelters go through them fast, and most are happy to take donations. Call your local shelter before dropping off a big batch since some have specific intake processes, but this is one of the easiest ways to give old balls a second purpose. Dogs don't care about ball pressure.
Animal shelters across the U.S. use thousands of tennis balls each month as enrichment toys. Your dead balls can bring real joy to a shelter dog.
Use them as furniture leg protectors
Cut an X into a dead tennis ball and slide it onto the leg of a chair or walker. It's an old trick, but it works, especially on hardwood floors. Nursing homes, schools, and physical therapy offices actually collect used tennis balls specifically for this reason. If you have a big stash, consider reaching out to a local facility and donating them in bulk.
How to do it:
Cut an X on one side
Slide onto chair leg
Enjoy scratch-free floors
Throw them in the dryer
Tossing two or three tennis balls into your dryer with a load of laundry, especially down jackets or comforters, helps fluff up the material and can reduce drying time. Clean them first, obviously. It sounds odd but it genuinely works and people have been doing it for years.
Use 2-3 clean balls. Works best with down jackets, comforters, and pillows. Cuts drying time by up to 25%.
Donate them to a school PE program
Elementary and middle school PE classes use tennis balls constantly for drills, games, and activities where a full-pressure ball would be too much. Most PE teachers are thrilled to receive a box of used balls. Dead by tennis standards is perfectly alive for a fifth-grade gym class.
Recycle them properly through BallBack
This is the only option on the list that actually keeps the ball from eventually ending up in a landfill. BallBack partners with local schools, HOAs, and tennis centers across DFW to collect used balls and ship them for recycling through our national partner RecycleBalls. The rubber gets turned into court surfaces and construction materials. The balls that still have some bounce get repurposed as dog toys and donated to shelters.
If you're near Flower Mound and have 100+ old balls, reach out to us directly and we'll coordinate a free pickup. If your court or club wants a permanent collection bin, we can set that up too, at no cost to you.
Where recycled balls end up
Our Partners
Facilities That Make This Possible
BallBack's collection network spans across the DFW area and continues to grow:
Dead balls don't have to mean dead ends. They just need a better destination.
