Written by: Paul Baumann
2025
After cleaning the banks of the various waterways on the golf course, we had to dispose of a huge pile of mud, silt and reed waste. Unfortunately, the pile (appr. 200.000 kilo’s) was contaminated with a lot of golf balls and could not be disposed of as normal waste or spread over the fields as an organic nutrient. The only way to dispose of the material was as heavily contaminated waste, with estimated costs of up to €40.000.
Our greenkeeping team, came up with a great idea. First, they rented a feeding machine from a farmer. Next, they installed a conveyor belt at the exhaust to loosen the sludge and filter the golf balls. About 10.000 golf balls were successfully removed from the pile at a total cost of 1/8th of the original estimation (including labor and rentals).
The golf balls were sold through a message on MarketPlace and the sludge was spread over the fields as non-polluted, pure organic material. This has a high nutrient value and helps the soil to better retain water and fertilizers.
