Luke Riley, a New Canaan native and varsity tennis player at St. Luke's School, has started an initiative to bring tennis ball recycling to the area, partnering with Reycleballs.org.

While many tennis players open a new can of balls every time they play, most end up just throwing out their old balls, leading to an estimated 125 million tennis balls being discarded every year - creating 20,000 tons of methane-producing waste, with each one taking an average of 400 years to decompose.

According to Recycleballs.org, the reason there was no way to recycle them was because there was no money in re-using the materials, while the process of separating the rubber from the felt was also expensive and time consuming.

To try to fix this, Recycleballs created something called "green gold" - a crumb rubber substance made by separating and grinding up tennis balls, which can be used to make tennis courts and different types of turf, along with traffic safety equipment.

Riley has placed collection bins from Recycleballs around New Canaan - at the library, New Canaan Racquet Club, The Field Club of New Canaan and Woodway Country Club.

Once they get filled up, he is able to send them off to Recycleballs' dedicated recycling plant in Vermont, where they are either re-purposed as dog toys, or used to make green gold - ensuring that they stay out of landfills, and help the environment.