Do you recognize these?

If you wear contact lenses, like I do, you probably will. It’s a small collection of plastic contact lens cases. There is one case for each single contact lens. The foil top was removed for the photo.

I wear daily wear contact lenses. That means I use a single lens for 1 day and then toss it. Great for my eyes because I always have a clean (brand new) contact lens to put in. Bad for the environment because of all the plastic cases required.

I have gradually gone from lenses that last up to one year down to my current daily wear. Eye problems from the extneded wear lenses forced this change. No matter how well you clean your contacts there will always be a protein build-up on the lens. This protein build-up can lead to eye irritation or worse, infection.

One environmental benefit to the daily wear lenses is that I do not use any saline solution (the small amount in each little case is more than enough). Therefore, I do not buy any large plastic bottles of solution. Something I have been unsuccessful in finding out is the amount of plastic in one bottle of saline solution vs. the amount of plastic in the cases (on an annual basis). I guess a simple weighing of the items in question would solve this. (Look for this in a future greenthinkers.org blog post.)

If there is any good news, it is that you can add these to your blue box for recycling, which I do.

Is there an alternative (other than using eye glasses instead or having laser eye surgery!)? I am not sure. But, this is something that i am definately going to look into.