April 22 is Earth Day, a day we usually tell you about our eyeglasses recycling program (and we have one, it’s great, if you’re interested ask us about it!), but today we thought we’d focus on our partnership with Bausch + Lomb to recycle all the waste created by daily contact lenses.
Now don’t get us wrong, we’re not knocking dailies — they’re great, and several of our employees and doctors use them — but there’s no denying that after you insert your new lens each morning (Each morning, do you hear us?! Do not wear your contacts longer than suggested, please!) a lot of packaging goes in the trash.
According to Bausch + Lomb, even those of you who have made efforts to recycle contact lenses and packaging in standard recycling bins are probably failing because they get filtered out due to their small size. However, with their One by One program, the company has already recycled more than 25,000 pounds of lens items. That’s more than 4 million recycled lens items sent in by the 2,600 participating office locations (yes, we’re one of them) or individuals. Plus, for every qualifying shipment of 2 pounds of more, a $1/lb donation will be made to Optometry Giving Sight. Supporting the earth and vision — it’s a win/win! And B+L will take any brand of contacts, not just their own.
Here’s what you need to do:
- Each day, place your used blister packs, top foil and contact lenses into a small, cardboard box.
- Once the box is full, print a free shipping label.
- Take the box to any UPS location or ship it from home. It will be sent to TerraCycle to be recycled properly.
OR
- Bring your collected contact waste to us, and we’ll take care of it for you!
We’re proud to be doing our part to make daily contacts more environmentally friendly. We hope you’ll join us in keeping this unnecessary waste out of landfills!