what to do with my old prescription glasses
What practice you practice with your old pair of spectacles if they break or you've replaced them with a new pair? Here's 5 things that volition give your glasses a new lease on life and even help someone forth the fashion, from recycling to rehoming. Nearly half of all Australians vesture glasses or contact lenses, and chances are that y'all clothing glasses yourself or know someone who does. If that is the example and so you lot should consider recycling your one-time spectacles. The benefits of recycling our old glasses include:
- Sustainability and waste reduction
- Being philanthropic in ways other than giving coin
- Teaching children the importance and impact of existence charitable
The Fred Hollows Foundation no longer accepts donated glasses. A study by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) establish that sending donated glasses to developing countries is more costly and less constructive than providing new, set up-fabricated spectacles because of the cost of sorting donated glasses. Just this doesn't mean you tin't recycle your glasses.
We e'er work difficult to ensure every dollar donated is used finer and the nearly cost-effective way for us to tackle refractive error in patients is to provide affordable, new glasses.
*COVER Photograph: Mary Tran (2017)
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- 5 means you can recycle your old glasses
- #1 Donate them to a glasses recycling program
- #2 Requite them a new lease on life by selling them online, or gifting to a friend
- #3 Repair your glasses, or take them to someone who can
- #4 Replace the lenses on your frames
- #5 Save them for fancy dress occasions
- What not to do with your onetime glasses
A patient from the Rakhaine Community later on recieving spectacles as part of World Sight Twenty-four hours 2011.
PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Amendolia
five ways you can recycle your quondam glasses
#one Donate them to a spectacles recycling programme
I of the questions we are most frequently asked at The Foundation is 'where can I recycle my onetime spectacles?' The Lions Organisation's Recycle For Sight program sends some 450,000 pairs of glasses to developing countries every twelvemonth. You can send your old glasses to exist office of that, but the Recycle for Sight plan asks yous non to send glasses cases. Instead, wrap them in chimera wrap or put them in a padded bag, and post them to:
LIONS Recycle For Sight Australia Inc
PO Box 3021
Clontarf MDC
QLD 4019
Alternatively, donate your glasses at any HCF branch to be forwarded to Lions Recycle for Sight.
You lot tin can also take your pre-loved glasses into your local Specsavers shop and place them in the glasses recycling box or hand them to a team member.
A range of spectacles waiting to be used at Kampong Chhnang Infirmary's Eye Unit of measurement in Cambodia.
Photograph CREDIT: Matthew Perkins (2017)
#2 Give them a new lease on life by selling them online, or gifting to a friend
Hand-me-downs can sometimes be overlooked simply if you take the time to explain to your family or friends why reusing is the mode to go, y'all can definitely sell them the thought. Non only will they be helping reduce waste, they'll too be scoring a new pair of glasses that'll potentially save them hundreds of dollars! And if you don't have a friend or family member who wants or needs your old glasses or frames, you could look further afield by using a website such every bit Freecycle, where yous can connect with agreeing people, who are actively trying to be more witting consumers. You could also accept part in the circular economy and brand certain your glasses are used to their total chapters by selling them locally on a site such as Gumtree or ebay.
#3 Repair your glasses, or take them to someone who can
Whether information technology's a scratched lens, a dented frame or a missing screw, information technology's possible your glasses can exist repaired, saving you a fair bit of money. Having a screw loose tin send you derailed but, equally Sian Drupe points out in her volume Mend It!, a tiny screwdriver from an optician'south, electronics store or even a Christmas cracker, could be enough to help y'all. Or you can push button some thin wire through the hole where the screw goes and use some pliers to wrap the wire around the inside of the frame several times earlier twisting the ends together with pliers. If the bridge of your glasses has snapped, it doesn't mean they're finished. Glue and paper are all you need, every bit WikiHow explains. You tin use a commercially-available scratch repair kit to repair damage to your lenses, or you tin use household products such as toothpaste or blistering soda to smoothen your lenses and remove scratches. WikiHow explains just how to do information technology. If yous're feeling a trivial handy and desire to accept a become at repairing your own glasses, bank check out this video on Youtube. If yous don't have the fourth dimension to practise it yourself, yous can also take it repaired professionally.
#four Supersede the lenses on your frames
If you like your frames but your prescription has changed or the lenses are damaged, you tin only supervene upon the lenses in your existing frames. Most eyeglass outlets volition let you have this option, reducing your waste and saving you lot coin. Our friends at Specsavers advise y'all "visit your local store with the frames and have a conversation with the team; they will be able to appraise your glasses for suitability and will be able to give you lot a quote based on your requirements."
#five Save them for fancy clothes occasions
Whether information technology'due south that function Christmas party theme or a child's Book Week dress-upwards challenge, your old frames might come in handy when you want to dress upwardly as Harry Potter, Audrey Hepburn or Fred Hollows.
Dani Frost dressed every bit Prof. Fred Hollows, during a 'Night of Notables' at her school in Ormond, Victoria (Australia) in 2002.
Photo courtesy of Wendy Frost.
What not to exercise with your old glasses
If you throw your one-time spectacles in the regular household bin, they will end up in landfill where the resilient plastic and glass will sit for generations. The mix of materials in your glasses and frames ways y'all tin't put them in your household recycling bin either and, if yous practise, they'll just cease upward in a landfill anyway. Then, it's important y'all don't throw your old glasses in the rubbish or recycling bins. Information technology's also important non to let them sit in your desk or vanity drawer, gathering dust. Specially when y'all can easily donate them. If y'all accept ideas other than the five nosotros've shared on what to do with old glasses then contact united states of america and permit us know!
ABOUT THE Author
Matthew is The Fred Hollows Foundation's social media specialist. After realising he was paying his way through a psychology degree with media piece of work, Matthew decided to accept a crack at working as ABC Radio'southward online and on-air producer in Kalgoorlie-Boulder. He figured, 'why not make a stab of it as a career?!' From Kalgoorlie, Matthew establish his way to Perth and and so on to Sydney, helping to found the social media presence of both 702 ABC Sydney and ABC current affairs programme, 7:xxx. These days, Matthew uses those skills in the campaign to end avoidable incomprehension
Matthew Perkins - The Fred Hollows Foundation
Source: https://www.hollows.org/au/blog/what-to-do-with-your-old-eyeglasses
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