How to Recycle Contact Lenses and Packaging
How to Recycle Contact Lenses and Packaging
Those of us who wear disposable contact lenses go through a lot of them over the course of a year, which includes those individual blister packs that the lenses come in. You might be surprised to learn that yes, you actually can recycle contact lenses and packaging. Here’s how.
First of all, the cardboard boxes that the lenses come in can simply be recycled with other paper recycling, but don’t throw contact lenses or plastic blister packs into your curbside recycling bin. They have to be recycled through special recycling programs. Also, please don’t flush used contacts down the toilet or down the sink. Plastic in our wastewater is a pollutant and is an additional contaminant for wastewater treatment plants to deal with. Plastics may also eventually find their way into the ocean.
Contact Lens Recycling Drop-Offs
TerraCycle has partnered with Bausch & Lomb to manage a lens recycling program that has many free drop-off sites around the country, usually at eye care centers and optometric offices. You do not have to be using Bausch & Lomb brand lenses to participate in the program, all brands are accepted. They take used contacts and the blister packs.
To find a drop-off location, visit TerraCycle’s contact recycling locator map and search your local area. If you’re lucky, perhaps your current eye doctor is on there and you can simply drop them off at your next check up.
If you are interested in being a contacts recycling drop-off point, you can also contact TerraCycle and make a request to be added to their program.
