When Chris Fong, a year 6 student at Kings School, Paramatta tried to return one of his broken tennis racquets to his tennis centre, he was surprised to hear the racquet would ultimately end up in landfill. Being passionate about recycling and mindful of the waste product derived from everyday activities, this just wasn’t good enough for Chris.

So when he had the opportunity to choose a project that would take approximately 40 hours of their own time to complete as part of the Enterprise schools initiative, Chris decided to create wall clocks out of used tennis racquets. He hoped to raise awareness of waste issues with his classmates while also showing that with a bit of creativity and flair, one person’s trash really can be another’s treasure.

Therese McCade from the Tennis Ranch in Gladesville helped Chris to source a number of racquets headed to landfill and Chris repurposed these into innovative and aesthetically interesting wall clocks. He then sold some of the clocks and donated the proceeds to none other than Planet Ark Environmental Foundation!

“The initiative and creativity shown by Chris is exactly what National Recycling Week is all about,” said Ryan Collins, Planet Ark’s Recycling Programs Manager.

“With a little willpower, dedication and some good ideas, there is almost no limit to what we can achieve with our waste!”

Congratulations Chris, we know we will be hearing more about you in the future.