Pantec and Start-U-up present a 100% biodegradable golf ball tested by Dutch golf pro’s and nFlight to be “as good as a regular golf ball”.
The golf ball is suitable for both driving range and touring and is an alternative for regular golf balls in all golf ball market segments.
Pantec expects the ball to be a reasonable alternative for 80-90% of all golfball players which will hardly notice the difference: 10-20% of the better players and pro’s will still prefer high-end and high quality plastic balls.
The 100% biodegradable golfball is a.o. composed out of potato starch in a secret formula: a “left-over” product from the potato processing industry.
All golfball components are 100% biodegradable*: the golf ball itself is expected to 100% degrade in 1-3 years depending on external climate factors. Exact degradation times are currently tested in cooperation with a.o. the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands.
Quotes from the New York Times (May 2nd, 2010): “No one knows for sure how many golf balls are lost each year worldwide, though the total in the United States is estimated at 300 million. Hundreds of thousands of golfballs are lost or abandoned every day in lakes, ponds, forests, wetlands, deserts, backyarts, gardens, parking lots, on rooftops and at the bottom of woodchuck holes”.....”The informed guess is that most balls begin to break down somewhere between 50 and 500 years. Whether the great multitude of lost golf balls rotting under logs or slowly dissolving at the bottom of swampy estuaries pose an environment hazard is also apparently undetermined. But the mere presence of so many abondoned golf balls has made many uncomfortable and has caused others to hypothesize about possible effects”.
Quotes from CNN.com (November 4th, 2009): “It was found that during decomposition, the (regular) golf balls dissolved to release a high quantity of heavy metals. Dangerous levels of zinc were found in the synthetic used in solid core golf balls. When submerged in water, the zinc attached itself to the ground sediment and poisoned the surrounding flora and fauna.”
Political questions about “environmental golf problem” already asked in a.o. UK and Denmark.
Pantec is currently setting up the producion line for the golf ball. The ball is expected to come to market in June 2012.