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We’ve become accustomed to recycling cardboard boxes, aluminum cans, plastic water bottles, magazines and other items that we once threw in the trash. Have you considered recycling your old contact lenses? Contact lenses can be recycled! But disposing of your contacts in an eco-friendly manner isn’t as simple as tossing them into a recycling bin.
The following are ways you shouldn’t dispose of contact lenses:
Continue reading to learn how you SHOULD dispose of your contact lens trash!
In 2016, Bausch + Lomb teamed up with TerraCycle, a handler of hard-to-recycle waste, to create the ONE by ONE Recycling Program. The program is designed to recycle contact lenses, blister packs and blister-pack foil. As of April 2019, the recycling program had diverted more than 9.2 million used contacts, blister packs and foil from waterways, landfills and traditional recycling facilities.
How does the ONE by ONE program work? Once you’ve collected your old contacts, blister packs and foil, you can pick one of two recycling paths:
You don’t need to wash the contact-lens waste before you recycle it, but you should be sure the blister packs are free of liquid. “Once received, the contact lenses and blister packs are separated and cleaned,” according to Bausch + Lomb. “The metal layers of the blister packs are recycled separately, while the contact lenses and plastic blister pack components are melted into plastic that can be remolded to make recycled products.”
Fortunately, the program accepts used contact lenses and other contact-lens recyclables from any manufacturer, not just Bausch + Lomb. For every qualifying shipment weighing at least 2 pounds, Bausch + Lomb will donate $1 per pound to Optometry Giving Sight, a global fundraising initiative that seeks to prevent blindness and impaired vision.
Think of recycling your contact lenses as a “win-win” with little effort on your part. Your contact lenses and their packaging are recycled, and you’re helping programs to prevent blindness. Where does it all go? Your contacts and packaging are turned into “a variety of post-consumer products, such as recycled picnic tables and garden beds,” Amy Butler, vice president of global environment, health, safety and sustainability at Bausch Health, said in 2018.
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