OGDEN, Utah — Plastics play an enormous and growing role in our world, but one Weber State University student is finding ways to keep them out of landfills and on the pickleball court instead.

According to mechanical engineering student Parker Libby, pickleball's player base has grown by 300% in just the last three years as the sport has exploded in popularity across Utah and beyond.

But with that growth comes a surprising environmental cost.

“Around 500 million pickleballs are made each year,” Libby said. “That’s enough to fill about 40 Olympic-sized swimming pools. If we could use even 50 percent recycled plastic, we could save roughly 6,000 tons of plastic from going into landfills every year.”

That’s a small dent in the overall global problem — an estimated 380 million tons of plas

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