Sustainability in contact lenses

From efficiencies and audits in the manufacturing process, to dropping off used contact lenses at a practice recycling point, the sector is exploring methods for reducing waste across the supply chain.

OT heard from Aldo Zucaro, CooperCompanies senior director global strategy, innovation and sustainability, and Marc Schulze, CORE senior clinical scientist, about sustainability across the contact lens sector.

1 Keeping the workforce safe

Zucaro, CooperCompanies senior director global strategy, innovation and sustainability, explained: “Hazardous and environmentally unsafe materials are an extremely important topic that we talk about all the time.”

“The health and wellbeing of our workforce begins with understanding the materials that we’re exposing them to, making sure that not only are we careful if we are exposing them to certain materials, but also making sure that the treatment of those materials is done in the most environmentally sensible way,” he explained.

Extremely hazardous materials are not used in contact lens manufacturing, Zucaro said, but added that factors like alcohol are used, which requires care.

2 Sustainability in contact lenses

The Centre for Ocular Research & Education (CORE) at the University of Waterloo launched a website earlier this year to provide information to patients and practitioners on the environmental impact of the eye care sector.

Schulze, CORE senior clinical scientist, shared that the website was designed to help the public “learn a bit more about what is actually available when it comes to better disposal of contact lens waste.”

The website shares a list of recycling programmes around the world for contact lenses, spectacles, and eye care products.

He explained that the sustainability of the sector is relatively good, but awareness is a major component.

He said: “All of the companies have great initiatives in place, it’s just a matter of us as clinicians bringing the message out more, and being more visible in presenting that.”

3 Plastic fantastic

Zucaro emphasised the value of plastic as a material. He said: “I always tell people the same thing – plastic is an amazingly brilliant material. There are very few things that do their job as well as plastic does.”

“How we create it, how we treat it, how we manage it, well that’s much more on us than it is on plastic,” he said.

The individual components of contact lens products are “wonderfully recyclable,” Zucaro suggested.

“As a manufacturer, I think we need to shoulder the burden of the design of the product – it is a small item. It doesn’t have a lot of componentry to it,” he said, adding: “We need to think about not only how they’re created, but the energy we use in transforming the raw material into the product.”

Product end-of-life is also a key aspect to consider, once the contact lens has served its purpose and been recycled.

“We’re making progress,” Zucaro said.

4 Levels of waste

CORE has created infographic resources to help illustrate the level of waste created through the use of contact lenses.

Schulze shared that typical everyday wear of daily disposable contact lenses creates approximately 1.06kg of waste per year. For reusable contact lenses, this comes to 0.83kg per year.

When measured over wear for four days in a week, the level of waste between the two different modalities evens out.

Schulze said: “Lots of people think daily disposables create so much more, but forget about the solution bottle. What is more crucial is that you can recycle everything to do with disposables, but you cannot for reusables.” 

“If you look at the whole picture, it’s not a lot. It’s more than if you did not wear contact lenses, but then again, you will need to correct your eyesight in some way and glasses will go to the landfill potentially as well. There are ups and downs with both,” Schulze said.

5 Recycling for patients

Daily disposable contact lenses, blister packs, and foils, can all go into specialised recycling programmes, Schulze said.

For reusable contact lenses, solution bottles present an added factor and can typically be recycled through municipal programmes. However, the caps and tamper-proof rings would need to be removed and thrown into household waste.

Sharing tips for recycling contact lenses at home, Schulze recommended collecting the waste in a resealable plastic bag and removing the foil completely from the blister packs, in order to be able to store more together. This can then be taken to a recycling programme. If one is not available, then this should be thrown away with regular household waste.

“Don’t put them into the toilet,” Schulze emphasised.

6 Size of components in recycling

Zucaro pointed out an interesting challenge in the recycling of contact lenses, as currently, 50mm is typically the smallest size that most recycling facilities can handle.

“They are working on scale so these machines have gaps,” Zucaro said. “The question with the recycling industry is to encourage them to shorten their gaps.”

The company is also exploring ways to make contact lenses or packaging resemble something larger in order to withstand the stress of the recycling process – such as stacking, linking, or collecting together.

7 Useful material

Currently silicone hydrogel is recycled mainly as an impurity within durable recycled materials.

Zucaro said: “It is highly valuable, and so it doesn’t feel right to take something that is very valuable and treat it as an impurity in something else.”

The company is working on ways to use the material going forwards, and has worked with universities in the US and Europe to work towards new ideas.

He explained: “We’ve tried a number of things, we’ve tried pyrolysis recycling – applying heat to it – and it degrades wonderfully into materials that you can use. We’ve looked at other traditional examples of using it – can we transform it, or line things with it? It does a good job in that perspective.”

“We know we have potential uses for it. The next big job is how we focus on collection so that we could amass it in quantities that could be used in a commercial setting,” Zucaro added.

Describing CooperCompanies’ efforts to explore ways to recycle contact lenses, and reuse waste materials, Zucaro emphasised the importance of promoting conversations and new ideas.

He said: “We don't have to be great to get started, but you need to start in order to be great. So, let's just get started.”