Amazeballs, the Cape Town non-profit that recycles and upcycles discarded padel gear, saw its work take centre stage, when padel court turf it recovered from Africa Padel became the playing surface of a new football pitch for Vanguard Primary School in Heideveld.
The pitch, officially named the We Are Africa Pitch for Peace, was unveiled in front of South Africa’s Minister of Tourism, Patricia de Lille, as part of a music & soccer festival that drew the local community together for a day of celebration.
When Africa Padel decommissioned its courts, the old turf faced the same fate as most sporting waste: landfill. Amazeballs saw an opportunity instead. That turf now forms the playing surface of the pitch. The build is the latest under Uthando South Africa’s Waste to Wonder campaign, made possible by an almost R500,000 donation from travel trade show We Are Africa.
Alongside the pitch, a Kind Heart Bench was unveiled to promote mental wellbeing, kindness and community connection. Ladles of Love provided meals for the children, and the day’s festivities included live youth performances and exhibition soccer matches.
Padel is now South Africa’s fastest-growing sport, with over 270 venues and more than 800 courts nationwide, and growth is expected to triple within three years. Globally, the sport has 25 million players across 90 countries. That growth comes with a cost. A padel or tennis ball takes 400 years to decompose in a landfill, and thousands are discarded every year as the sport scales. Amazeballs exists to intercept that waste before it becomes a permanent problem, and to turn it into something communities can actually use.
“In the Cape Flats, where safe spaces are scarce and opportunity is often shaped by circumstance, a discarded padel court has been transformed into something far more powerful than waste. It has become a place of play, belonging and possibility. This is what Amazeballs exists to do. We take what the padel industry throws away and put it back into the hands of children who need it most. A pitch like this one isn’t just recycled turf. It’s proof that waste has a second purpose, if someone is willing to find it,” said Lesley Waterkeyn, Founder and CEO of Amazeballs.
The Vanguard Primary pitch builds on the wider Pitches for Peace programme, which has already delivered a pitch to Athwood Primary in Hanover Park in partnership with Racket & Ball, Uthando South Africa, The Natural Building Collective, Great Commission United and the Cape Flats Sports Academy. The long-term goal is a five-a-side pitch at every school across Hanover Park and Heideveld, 15 schools in total.
About Amazeballs Amazeballs is a Cape Town-based non-profit organisation that collects discarded padel balls, rackets and court surfaces before they reach landfill, and redirects them toward Early Childhood Development centres and schools in under-resourced communities across South Africa. The organisation holds Section 18A tax-exempt status, and works under the model: Recycle. Upcycle. Uplift.
Article Provided
