Celluloid balls are back???

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Saw this post on Facebook. The ITTF AGM is on the 6th December. Here are some of the resolutions to be voted/discussed? https://www.ittf.com/2022-ittf-annual-general-meeting/#:~:text=General%20Meeting%20AGENDA.-,2022%2D10%2D06%20ANNOUNCEMENT%3A%20Please%2C%20find%20here%20the,General%20Meeting%20PROPOSITIONS%20AND%20RESOLUTIONS.&text=2022%2D08%2D29%20ANNOUNCEMENT%3A,4%20to%206%20December%202022

- A-04: The ball shall be made of celluloid or similar plastics material and shall be white or orange, and matt.

- A-05 Was - At least 85% of the blade by thickness shall be of natural wood; an adhesive layer within the blade may be reinforced with fibrous material such as carbon fibre, glass fibre or compressed paper, but shall not be thicker than 7.5% of the total thickness or 0.35mm, whichever is the smaller. Now- The blade shall be made of one or more layers of natural wood or other solid materials, without cavities and not compressible.

- A-06 Net in the game can have disadvantageous effects for several reasons – Remove net services

Remove time-out Removal of time out from matches

What do you think of these and does anyone else have more info on this? Imagine if Celluloid balls come back 😍
 
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ScoopsTT;385941Saw this post on Facebook. The ITTF AGM is on the 6th December. Here are some of the resolutions to be voted/discussed? https://www.ittf.com/2022-ittf-annual-general-meeting/#:~:text=General%20Meeting%20AGENDA.-,2022%2D10%2D06%20ANNOUNCEMENT%3A%20Please%2C%20find%20here%20the,General%20Meeting%20PROPOSITIONS%20AND%20RESOLUTIONS.&text=2022%2D08%2D29%20ANNOUNCEMENT%3A,4%20to%206%20December%202022

- A-04: The ball shall be made of celluloid or similar plastics material and shall be white or orange, and matt.
40- celluloid balls were never gone to start with OFICIALLY. You missed the crossing out of the word "celluloid" in th new proposition,meaning they want to make celluloid balls illegal going forward.
(When you did a copy & paste here,you left out the cross out of the word "celluloid")

The 40- celluulod ball has always been legal since 2000 (& after the arrival of 40+ plastic ball in 2014) . This proposition A-03 wants to make celluloid balls illegal.

This is the same trick former ITTF President (later convicted by ITTF) Adham Sharara used to make 40- celluloid ball legal in 2000. He agreed to let the 38 mm ball also stay legal to pass his 40 change which failed in his first attempt, (I is just that nobody used 38 mm aftwerwards because amateur TT groupies just blindly follow what pros use, just like they now use 40+ plastic balls though 40- celluloid ball is very much legal today) . And then, when Adham Sharara made 40+ plastic ball legal, he left 40- celluloid ball legal but cleverly kicked out the 38 mm ball, which he always wanted do to start with in 2000

Most of these propositions are really screwy & are not checked by anyone . For example Proposition A-06 is two propositions in one. One is about net lets for serves s & other about timeouts. I do not understand how they were even allowed to submit like that to start with, as it is quite confusing

And in most cases noone discusses beforehand but only go crazy after the change is made. This was understandable before the internet days but there is no excuse for this now.

My friend's aunt's nephew who used to run tournaments in South Carolina always used 40- celluloid balls for all tournaments including state championships.even after the introduction of the 40+ Plastic ball of 2014. He also waived the 1998 Durban Aspect Ratio Reduction regulation & 2004 Pip Density Reduction Regulation for regular events as well as waive the 2008 Frictionless Pips Ban for veterans events,

 
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Once people figure out the the current plastic balls are made from a non-renewable resource - crude oil and end up as plastic trash that lingers in the environment, maybe in the far future when ITTF is not as corrupt or is more sensitive to public opinion, we will see the comeback of the celluloid ball or something similar made with cellulose. That's my prediction.
 
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Once people figure out the the current plastic balls are made from a non-renewable resource - crude oil and end up as plastic trash that lingers in the environment, maybe in the far future when ITTF is not as corrupt or is more sensitive to public opinion, we will see the comeback of the celluloid ball or something similar made with cellulose. That's my prediction.
You're wrong sir, I work in the recycling industry, I'm a plastic specialist for instance. I know all the numbers inside the recycling triangle logo and what they mean. The ABS plastic is number 7 named "other" below the logo, means that those plastics are heated to be back to their liquid state, and therefore can be molded to make TT balls again, and it can be done many times, again and again and again... The guys at the office didn't know what to do with those TT plastic balls, so I told them it was ABS, they then said "fine ! it's indeed ok to be sold back to the plastic industry."

We've got palboxes with references for each kind of plastics, we do mainly PET 1 or sometimes named also PETE 1, HD-PE 2, LD-PE 4, PP 5, PS 6 and OTHER 7 where we throw the ABS plastic balls in.

https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/...com/site-files/2017/06/iStock-530479243-5.jpg
 
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You're wrong sir, I work in the recycling industry, I'm a plastic specialist for instance. I know all the numbers inside the recycling triangle logo and what they mean. The ABS plastic is number 7 named "other" below the logo, means that those plastics are heated to be back to their liquid state, and therefore can be molded to make TT balls again, and it can be done many times, again and again and again... The guys at the office didn't know what to do with those TT plastic balls, so I told them it was ABS, they then said "fine ! it's indeed ok to be sold back to the plastic industry."

We've got palboxes with references for each kind of plastics, we do mainly PET 1 or sometimes named also PETE 1, HD-PE 2, LD-PE 4, PP 5, PS 6 and OTHER 7 where we throw the ABS plastic balls in.

https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/...com/site-files/2017/06/iStock-530479243-5.jpg

Thanks for the insight. It's good to know that the ABS is almost infinitely recyclable. I just have a question about the celluoid. Is that non recyclable? It seems they are very fragile/volatile so they would quickly melt.

 
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Thanks for the insight. It's good to know that the ABS is almost infinitely recyclable. I just have a question about the celluoid. Is that non recyclable? It seems they are very fragile/volatile so they would quickly melt.

Yeah that's right indeed, celluloid is simply cotton cellulose + camphor, sure it's the oppposite of something made of crude oil, but cellulose simply... burns if you think of it as its natural state as the main component of all the plants skin, that's why everything burns in the nature when there's a wild fire, and worse of it all: it was used as an ignition material, the infamous cotton powder cos' an ester has been derived from it called the nitrocellulose, also used in the early guitar industry, the nitrocellulose lacquer.

Sorry edit: the right name is guncotton, not cotton powder, I mismatched cos' it's used instead of black powder.
https://www.angelo.edu/faculty/kboudrea/demos/guncotton/guncotton.htm

 
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You're wrong sir, I work in the recycling industry, I'm a plastic specialist for instance. I know all the numbers inside the recycling triangle logo and what they mean. The ABS plastic is number 7 named "other" below the logo, means that those plastics are heated to be back to their liquid state, and therefore can be molded to make TT balls again, and it can be done many times, again and again and again... The guys at the office didn't know what to do with those TT plastic balls, so I told them it was ABS, they then said "fine ! it's indeed ok to be sold back to the plastic industry."

We've got palboxes with references for each kind of plastics, we do mainly PET 1 or sometimes named also PETE 1, HD-PE 2, LD-PE 4, PP 5, PS 6 and OTHER 7 where we throw the ABS plastic balls in.

https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/...com/site-files/2017/06/iStock-530479243-5.jpg

Celluloid is biodegradable. Just because that plastic may be recyclable does not make it economically viable to recycle or is actually done.

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/8976...blic-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/a...e-plastic-chemical-recycling-disposal/661141/
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/environment-plastic-oil-recycling/
https://time.com/6173859/plastic-recycling-big-oil-damage/

This is the reality for most places. To be fair it could be different where you're from, but everywhere else is not where you're at.

 
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Celluloid is biodegradable. Just because that plastic may be recyclable does not make it economically viable to recycle or is actually done.

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/8976...blic-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/a...e-plastic-chemical-recycling-disposal/661141/
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/environment-plastic-oil-recycling/
https://time.com/6173859/plastic-recycling-big-oil-damage/

This is the reality for most places. To be fair it could be different where you're from, but everywhere else is not where you're at.

Typical racist comment, wait... because I'm not from a poor country I should trust your nonsense ? you clearly know nothing about chemistry and petrochemistry. I'm from a country that makes EVERYTHING possible to recycle plastic, because we know it's not safe as a waste. You're from America, and as Gtsnake says: it's a political thing, we all know the US elected politics are controlled by the petrochemicals lobby, by the crude oil lobby, that they don't care about recycling, cos' it's a waste of money to them.

Now I'm gonna tell ya how it works: ABS balls are first crushed, then heated and molded to make pellets. It's easy, it only requires a few and cheap machines to achieve that process.

Is it ok to build something from crude oil ? sure not, but is it better to throw celluloïd balls everywhere as a waste that could be used as a weapon to arm people ? plus many solvants are used to make cell balls, it's not cellulose acetate, that's where your confusion comes from. It's always the same confusion heard everywhere on the planet, only because it's easier to throw fake news than to learn things that take times.

"Cellulose acetate was developed in 1929 as a flame-resistant cellulose derivative due to the inflammability of celluloid." THIS is the proof that you're an ignorant about chemistry.

Worse of it all: making TT balls from cellulose acetate would still need plasticizers, reinforceing materials to make them resistant, and also... solvants like acetone. Your supposed to be "bio cellate ball" as it's been named decades ago is not THAT biodegradable at all.
https://www.daicel.com/cell_ac/en/cellulose/ca_biodegradable.html
 
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Plus, we all know how short-minded US politics are. There's a specific job that's called "valoriste" in my country, it's not only recycling, it's saying "can we affect some value to that waste ? can we make money from that waste ?" and most of the time, we make money from waste in the office I work in.

But of course it's a political thing, I'm gonna tell you something about... clothes, used clothes for instance, those that are first made in Bangladesh for example. There's a company that gives us 130 bucks per ton of old clothes, guess what they do with it ? they sell it back to Ghana mostly, in hundreds of containers by boats, and it ends in ... above-ground landfills !

Because it's easier and short-minded to make easy money than to reduce old clothes in pellets to heat homes. This company could help in those war times, but... there's no real political motivation to tell Gebetex it would be better to "value" wasted clothes as an energy resource.

Fortunately, journalists have documented the problem and things will soon change, cos'... winter is coming, homes need to be heated with alternative heating systems.
 
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[size=+2]WHY DO ABS BALLS SPINNING AT LOW RATE.[/size]

The most apparent dissimilarity between balls of celluloid material and the ABS material is the rotation speed, and the celluloid is more spinny by general notion of players/ Why so?
The two materials are known to differ in density significantly. 1.10 g/cm³ ABS plastic vs 1.45 g/cm³ nitrozo celluloid. This is the very factor to cause the balls having different shell thickness. The celluloid balls will get much thinner shell compared to ABS, which can be verified by a simple household instrument.
According to the general laws of Mechanics, a sphere with a thick outer shell (=ABS material) will have a low spin rate.

Be happy.

https://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=392761#p392761
 
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Typical racist comment, wait... because I'm not from a poor country I should trust your nonsense ?
Where did that come from? I'm acknowledging that wherever in Europe you're from probably has a more environmental recycling policy but the facts are(as shown in the articles), in the majority of other places, that switch to the plastic balls means more plastic ends up in the landfill.
Is it ok to build something from crude oil ? sure not, but is it better to throw celluloïd balls everywhere as a waste that could be used as a weapon to arm people ?
Are you suggesting waste celluloid balls being reprocessed as weapons? Explosive ammunition of some sort? Are you OK?
Worse of it all: making TT balls from cellulose acetate would still need plasticizers, reinforceing materials to make them resistant, and also... solvants like acetone. Your supposed to be "bio cellate ball" as it's been named decades ago is not THAT biodegradable at all.
https://www.daicel.com/cell_ac/en/cellulose/ca_biodegradable.html

Is this what they call a straw man? I only mentioned celluloid or something that would use cellulose, that will be developed in the future that could replace plastic. I am not very familiar with cellulose acetate except that it was a failure when DHS tried to use it to replace celluloid.

 
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I know its a bit off topic, but as a professional bladesmith, the thing that raises my eyebrows most out of all those proposals, is NOT the talk about celluloid balls.

It's the complete and utter redrafting (and MASSIVE loosening) of all the rules about blade construction.

All the current rules about minimum wood content, structure, gluing, and the role of carbon fiber has been part of the ITTF rules for an age.

They were partially (originally) intended to help ensure the game remained accessible to everybody, and that players could not gain an unfair advantage by buying expensive equipment.

The drafting of the new rules however are INCREDIBLY vague.Note that there is no stipulation on exactly how much wood a blade needs to contain.

The linked document makes mention of the ITTF witnessing "laboratory" spin and speed testing, and deciding loosening the rules was a good idea.

I find my self very curious as to who's equipment was on display, who owns the patents to it, and what it's going to cost.

I have no problem with innovation in blade-making - I've made a career out of it.What bothers me ENORMOUSLY however is that all the rules that guided development have been thrown out the window on this one.

We're going from tightly defined rules that levelled the playing field (not just for players, but for small blade makers like myself too) ...to the exact opposite.

Smaller firms like mine have absolutely no chance of survival when the rules around blade construction are radically re-written overnight. We simply don;t have the R&D budgets to compete.

Furthermore -- the ITTF's comments also suggest that some manufacturer out there has already done a heap of work on new R&D equipment that goes outside the ITTF's rules, and that they are seeking to have the rules radically re-written in order to make them legal.This effectively hands them m massive advantage in the market, whilst simultaneously making my last three years of R&D around both different wood types and biodegradability of TT equipment, completely valueless and irrelevant.

Does anybody else here think that a radical increase in spin and speed is going to make the game more watchable?

Or easier to play?

Or make the equipment cheaper to buy for that matter??

Of all the changes tabled in the opening post - in my opinion it's this one that has the biggest potential to radically change the game... for better and for worse.And in my person, admittedly biased view.... this change is drastically for the worse.

It seems designed purely to hand either one or several large TT equipment companies a massive commercial advantage - and sell an absolute truckload of new equipment, which going by the rule changes as proposed, do not need to be biodegradable at all.

For whatever it's worth, I personally am massive opposed to the wording of this change.

Loosen the rules by all means, but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Change this massive needs to happen over a much longer timeframe, otherwise the industry has no time to adapt.
 
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https://www.ittf.com/2022/12/05/watch-2022-ittf-annual-general-meeting/

Celluloid balls are no longer ITTF approved. The (Adham Sharara trick) proposal 04 to remove celluloid balls passed



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I plead to ITTF to ban all pips & anti to release & set free all of ITTF's political prisoners (choppers / defenders)
 
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