Re: [pf] Disposable contacts

by Betsy Barnum

07 December 2000 20:30 UTC

"Fitzsimmons, Diane" wrote:

> I know this is straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel, but (to mix my
> metaphors) this is the straw that broke the back of the swallowed camel.  I
> would welcome any sustainable justification for disposable contacts :^)

Unless you make sure every single pair of glasses your daughter ever get is
reused, there will be more waste of materials in one pair of eyeglasses than in
all the disposable contacts she could use in a long time. And since only the
frames can be reused, there's still the unreusable plastic in eyeglass lenses
(is it recyclable? I doubt it), and the amount of energy required to make them
as opposed to making contacts. The amount thrown away in disposable contacts for
the same period that a person, especially a child, will wear one pair of glasses
before needing a new prescription, would certainly be less than throwing away
that pair of eyeglass lenses every year, or every two years.

I don't wear contacts, but I think disposables are an obvious choice if the
child wants them and will use them properly. One of my sons has had them for
about 5 years and wears them with great success; the other one has "large
corneas," and we haven't found a kind that he can get in and out of his eyes
without great trauma. But if we could, he would be wearing them, too. I hate the
word and the concept "disposable," but in this case I think it's actually a good
idea.

Betsy

--
Betsy Barnum
bbarnum@wavetech.net
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1624

**************************************
The complex interchange we call "language" is rooted in the non-verbal exchange
already going on between our flesh and the flesh of the world.

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