What to tell your patients: sorting & disposing of their contact lens waste
One year’s worth of contact lens wear creates about 1 kg of waste,1,2 but did you know that most of this can be recycled?
Municipal recycling can take care of the cardboard boxes that keep the lenses together. But smaller items, such as the plastic blister tray, the shiny foils, and even the contact lenses themselves, cannot be recycled by regular municipal recycling streams.2
What should patients do with their contact lens waste?
Even though regular household recycling can’t handle contact lens waste, several specialist recycling companies can!
One example is TerraCycle, which has partnered with Bausch + Lomb in Canada and USA to offer a free recycling service for all brands of contact lenses and blister packs. All patients have to do is collect their used contact lenses, blister trays, and foils in a bag, and drop them off at a collection point. Patients can find where their nearest collection bins are located on the TerraCycle website. As a practice, you can also sign up to be a public drop-off point. Simply register with TerraCycle (Canada, USA) to get started. Contact lens wearers in the UK have the option to send their contact lens waste to Vision Direct using a FREE Royal Mail label.
Some optical companies may use other recycling companies. For example, Specsavers UK uses MyGroup to facilitate the recycling of their customer’s contact lens waste, while down in Australia, Opticycle is a leader in contact lens recycling of plastic blisters and foils. One provider that accepts lenses, blisters, foils, reusable lens cases, and tweezers is ReFactory.
Remind your patients to make sure their recyclable items are dry, and to only bring in the accepted items for drop off. Please note that unopened blister packs are not accepted through this program and should not be included in the collection bin.
Can my patients recycle their contact lens solutions and lens cases?
Again, the exterior cardboard packaging for care products can go into regular household recycling. Empty bottles of solution can also go into household recycling, however, any small pieces associated with the bottle (such as any bottle caps, stoppers, tamper evident rings) can usually only be discarded in a regular waste bin.
Contact lens cases need to be replaced regularly. Currently, these can only be recycled by a small number of providers, so if the collection box you have in your practice can’t accept them, you should advise your patient to throw them in a regular waste bin. However, if you’re in the USA, Bausch + Lomb has launched Biotrue Eye Care Recycling.
Under this initiative, the “difficult-to-recycle” pieces such as the solution bottle cap, contact lens case, and even eyedrop bottles (including single-dose vials) can be recycled, free of charge and all brands are accepted. Your patient simply sets up a free TerraCycle account, collects the accepted waste under the scheme, prints off a free shipping label when they’re ready to send their items, and ships it off to the address provided.
Another option for recycling these “difficult-to-recycle” pieces includes purchasing a Zero Waste Box from TerraCycle, where a range of non-hazardous flexible or rigid plastic products can be recycled by them. When the box is full of collected materials, the patient ships the box off to TerraCycle, who will take care of the sorting and recycling.
Summary
Whether you have a patient brand new to contact lenses or one that’s been wearing them for decades, you’ll now know how to educate them on how to sort their contact lens waste. These services are fairly new and evolving, so expect to keep up to date with the latest developments in this field.
Share this infographic (CAN / UK / US) with your patients and on your social media platforms, tagging @COREEyeNews and #CLSustainability #SustainableEyecare.
See our other pages to learn how much (or little) waste is generated from wearing contact lenses and why you should responsibly dispose of your contact lens waste.
References & Resources
1. Routhier J, Freitas MD, Hickson-Curran S. Daily disposable versus reusable contact lenses: a close match when it comes to the impact on the environment. Cont Lens Anterior Eye 2012;35:e2.
2. Smith SL, Orsborn GN, Sulley A, et al. An investigation into disposal and recycling options for daily disposable and monthly replacement soft contact lens modalities. Cont Lens Anterior Eye 2022;45(2):101435.