Local clinics part of contact lens recycling program

Oct 10, 2021 | 7:00 AM

Two Grande Prairie eye clinics have joined a program that collects disposable contact lenses and the blister packs they come in for recycling.

Both Doctors EyeCare and Aurora Eye Care are part of the Bausch + Lomb Every Contact Counts Recycling Program.

Dr. Shonah Finlay with Doctors EyeCare says the clinic wanted to be part of an effort to keep plastic lenses out of the landfills and waterways.

“With the waterways, in particular, people think it breaks down because they get old, and it doesn’t. That plastic floats around and then it gets stuck all over the place. In the ocean, they say you can see the masses of that little, fine plastic, that microplastic, that just floats.”

The lenses are sent to a company called Terra Cycle that sends plastics and other material to facilities that convert them into something usable.

Dr. Finlay adds that so far, there has been a good response from the public.

“We’ll get people that will come because the box is in front, and they’ll ask, and we’ll give them a little plastic envelope for them to put (their lenses in). Or, when they come in the next time, they’ll bring their old lenses that they’re no longer using, and we just take them out of the boxes and out them into the container.”

“We’ve had it for a few months now. It’s a big plastic bag. I would say we are almost at a point of sending it in.”

Dr. Finlay says even people who are not patients at her clinic can drop off plastic lenses for recycling.

by Curtis Galbraith