Green goals: recycled and bio-based sports balls

As well as being more eco-friendly, the balls are also Fairtrade-certified

Spotted: Sports are a cultural staple for countries around the world, whether you enjoy watching matches on TV, attending games, or playing yourself. And, according to FIFA, there are five billion football fans across the globe, making it the world’s most popular sport. To meet this popular demand, over 40 million footballs are made every year, relying on tonnes of crude-oil-based synthetic, animal leather, and rubber for their production. 

This is where the Rebond Project comes in. The French organisation is rethinking traditional manufacturing to create balls that contribute to a circular economy and are made from clean and sustainably sourced materials

The initial problem the Rebond team had to solve was finding an adequate recyclable substitute for the internal or inflatable part of a football (the balloon). Rebond settled on recycled plastic bottles and a natural latex inner tube to make, what the company claims is, the first bio-sourced and recycled balloon that met competition standards. To make the ball completely ‘clean’, Rebond chose to create the external part of the football entirely out of natural vegetable-based biomaterials.  

According to the company, 85 per cent of current ball production occurs in the Punjab region in India. Wanting to boost local production of “Made in France” balls, Rebond set up a French production line in Loire-Atlantique in 2019. Rebond highlights, though, that the goal isn’t to replace Punjabi workshops, but instead to use the France production line to complement them. 

According to Rebond Founder and CEO Simon Mutschler, the company is now aiming to get the FIFA-accredited logo on its balls so they can be sold to official football clubs. 

Springwise has spotted other innovations seeking to make sports more sustainable, including inclusive tennis programmes that recycle used balls and eco-friendly wetsuits for women. 

Written By: Archie Cox