Environment

How your Contact Lens harm the environment

Have you ever tried to flush your contact lens down the sink or toilet? Do you think that it is good for you? Contrary to what you believe, it might harm the environment aggressively. A recent study conducted by the American Chemical society stated that more than 20 percent of contact lens users preferred to flush their lens down the sink and toilet.

Contact Lens

It is no wonder that many people never worry about what happens once they flushed out their contact lens. Despite being a biomedical product, contact lenses do not biodegrade effectively. Another research has revealed that contact lenses can pollute surface water easily.

As per the study revealed conducted in 2015, around 20,000 tons of microplastic was found in the sea. It is already known that filters are there to isolate the waste sediments from the sea. However, contact lenses are extremely flexible, which makes it easier to destroy the purity of surface water.

Moreover, contact lenses are more likely to spread bacterial infection and fungal diseases. Being microplastics, it can be easily digested by corals, fish, and small animals. Further, the fragments may carry heavy loads of pollutant, which affects sea animals. Horribly, it affects the environment and makes it even worse.

A research stated that the waste generated by the disposable contact lenses is not extremely horrible when compared to other local areas. Moreover, it was around 0.5% of personal waste consumed totally. A study carried out in 2003, stated that conventional lenses are more likely to have a high negative impact than disposable waste pollutants.

As lenses are a kind of hydrogen peroxide product, it will not degrade easily. It is no wonder that many types of research have been carried out to determine the negative impact on contact lenses on the environment. No matter what type of lens you are using, it can cause severe pollutants.

When you consider old-fashioned glasses, chances are that disposable waste will be more. However, this is not the case for laser correction surgery as it does not generate additional waste and thus there are only minor negative impacts on the environment.

People are selective in their choices and had dedicated their hard-earned money to buy expensive glasses and contact lenses but never care about what happens to the environment after the lens has disposed of. It is our responsibility to take care of our fruitful environment.

Image credit

Puskar Pande

Editor in chief @GreenCleanGuide.com

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