TERRACYCLE NEWS

ELIMINATING THE IDEA OF WASTE®

TVCR now recycling contact lenses and blister packs

TerraCycle Include USA Bausch + Lomb
Teton Valley Vision Clinic has partnered with Teton Valley Community Recycling to recycle your used contact lenses and the blister packs they came in. Through an innovative program funded by Bausch & Lomb, our partnership with TerraCycle allows us to collect, package, and ship used contact lens waste back to the manufacturer for recycling and processing into new material. This program accepts ANY BRAND of used contact lens and the blister pack packaging.
Please bring your contact lens waste to the Teton Valley Vision Clinic in Victor or to the Teton GeoTourism Center in Driggs for convenient drop off at no cost to you. And thank you, Dr. Thomas Simmons for helping to bring this recycling program to Teton Valley! Proceeds from this program are donated to Optometry Giving Sight which focuses on global prevention of blindness and impaired vision due to lack of eye care.
As a small non-profit focused on recycling education and waste reduction advocacy, Teton Valley Community Recycling doesn’t have an official office location. Instead we try to partner with local businesses to help our mission of reducing waste in Teton Valley. We advocate for valley residents to have access to recycling options and we try to assist the county and the local waste hauler in managing challenging times in the current recycling market and issues with contaminated materials from the recycling public.
One effort we have been focusing on this year is bringing convenient options for recycling hard to recycle waste. We are an active member of the TerraCycle network which taps industries that produce waste and gets them to collect and recycle these materials that would otherwise end up in the landfill. In the past year, we’ve collected 50 lbs. of dental waste (toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes, floss containers) with help from local dentists. We’ve also collect 30 lbs. of foil energy bar wrappers and 20 lbs. of cereal bags. While it’s a small dent in the overall waste stream, it is nice to see these companies taking responsibility and recycling the waste they produce.
Stay tuned for our next offering: collection of beauty product waste including shampoo, soaps, lotions, make up, etc. and the annual used denim drive.