The way that’s angled, doesn’t it just immediately fill with water the first time it rains?
Why don’t they just change the tennis regulations to only use biodegradable materials?
“upcycled”
So we’re just spreading trash in the environment and feeling good about it because it can be reused by other animals?
This just made me look up and learn about the environmental impact of tennis balls.
So we’re just spreading trash in the environment and feeling good about it because it can be reused by other animals?
Sometimes it just works. Small octopuses love to take up residence in a beer bottle. It might not be the prettiest thing to find on the ocean bottom but it’s often home to one of the most intelligent invertebrates.
And, after all, that glass is just congealed sand.
That’s the problem with Tennis. The most wasteful sport as balls can’t be recycled unless used for slides for school chairs or now nests for mice.
Plastic polution feel good story.
This is green washing no matter how you slice it. While it’s an interesting idea, artificial refugia, like bat boxes or these balls, have to be very carefully designed so they don’t have one of these negative outcomes:
- Act as a trap for the targeted species with regards to predators
- Kill the target species - often through thermal extremes
- Just don’t get used by the target species
There’s some good work about this on (fuck, fine rummaging for paper) Australian quolls
I actually reached out to Cowan to asks a few questions. He was pumped that we were citing his work and using it in reclamation planning as landscape enchantments.
Anyway, artificial refugia should, at best, be viewed as a temporary fix, or a way to layer habitat on the landscape, never a full substitution.
Not to mention that just leaving tennis balls out in the wild for wildlife means all that rubber and plastic and glue and whatnot leeching into the soil and environs.
I actually reached out to Cowan to asks a few questions. He was pumped that we were citing his work and using it in reclamation planning as landscape enchantments.
I’m in a completely different field, but there’s nothing more awesome than seeing your work get used in real life situations that actually match up with your goals.
And people showing a genuine interest is a close second.
Thank you, I treasure comments like this! Does he weigh in on swift bricks anywhere? I do hope he likes those, at least.
You will be glad to know that HOAs are almost unheard of in the UK and where they exist they’re usually nothing more than an organisation for tending to the village green, common areas and sometimes library book boxes.
I’d cheer to this but I put my nuts in a meatgrinder if these balls aren’t as full of microplastics as my braincells
That’s exactly my first thought. Whenever I see upcycled things that will just break down into microplastics in nature, I wince.
It’s almost assured that your brain isn’t filled with microplastics or at the very least much less than claimed. The study that claimed that was pretty flawed. As usual the sensational got media attention but the refuting studies did not.
I guess I can take apart the meatgrinder then
nuts dangling with reflief
It’s for the best. You’re nuts… will… thank you, I guess?
Your nuts are also full of microplastics
