Hold on to those special specs: They can be used again
People across the country in the path of Monday’s total solar eclipse are scrambling to pick up viewing glasses, but it’s likely that few have considered what they’ll do with them after the celestial phenomenon is over.
Before trashing a pair of eclipse glasses, consider keeping or recycling them.
Eclipse glasses may be inexpensive, but they can last for years. Some glasses made a decade or more ago were printed with messages to throw them away after a certain period of time, but experts now say buyers may be in the clear.
“In the past 10, 15, 20 years ago, most manufacturers would print on their glasses ‘discard after three years,’” said Rick Fienberg, project manager of the American Astronomical Society’s solar eclipse task force. “That was because the materials being used in the lenses in those days did degrade over time.”
Since then, manufacturers started using more durable material, like metalcoated black polymer.
Fienberg recommends storing eclipse viewers in a safe, dark dry area, like an envelope in your dresser.
“If you open it up five, 10 years later for another eclipse and you see that there’s no pinholes, no scratches, no tears, no rips, no delamination of the lenses or any other obvious damage, they’re almost certainly OK,” he said.
Manufacturers work to avoid repeat of 2017 shortage
Amid fears glasses could sell out this year, as they did before the 2017 total solar eclipse, manufacturers have ramped up their output.
American Paper Optics, one of the country’s top makers of the glasses, manufactured about 45 million pairs in the runup to the 2017 eclipse. The company forecasts higher sales this year.
“We expect to sell, manufacture close to 75 million glasses,” Jason Lewin, the company’s chief marketing officer, told USA TODAY in late March.
Nonprofit launches program to recycle, redistribute glasses
One nonprofit is organizing a sustainable alternative to save glasses from ending up in the trash.
Astronomers Without Borders has launched its second eclipse glasses recycling program ahead of next week’s eclipse. Details can be found on its website, astronomerswithoutborders.org.
Formed in 2009, the California-based nonprofit started its program ahead of the 2017 eclipse with a dual goal – cutting down on post-eclipse waste and distributing glasses to underserved communities.
“There’s so many glasses out there,” said Andrew Fazekas, the nonprofit’s communication manager. “How wonderful would it be to be able to reuse them, repurpose them to other countries, to those that don’t have access?”
Before the 2017 eclipse, the nonprofit set up about 1,000 collection centers across the U.S. at astronomy clubs, museums, schools and even dentists’ and attorneys’ offices. Volunteers collected about 3 million glasses that were shipped to a warehouse in Arkansas and vetted by a local astronomy club to ensure they were safe for reuse.
“People from all walks of life” chipped in to help, Fazekas said. “It was unbelievable.”
The organization already is looking down the road. In October, an annular solar eclipse will be visible from a remote area at the southern tip of South America. “There’s populations there, and they’ll be asking for eclipse glasses,” Fazekas said.