Why you should stop flushing your contact lenses

It ss an eye-opening study about contact lenses.

New research from Arizona State reveals people need to stop flushing their contacts.

“There’s billions of lenses ending up in the U.S. Wastewater, every year. They contribute a load of at least 20-thousand kilograms per year of contact lenses,” Rolf Halden, with the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, said at a press conference Monday, with the American Chemical Society – where the study was published.

While people are supposed to toss the plastic material in the trash, up to 20 percent choose the sink or toilet.

An estimated 45 million Americans use contacts. That leads to about 3.3 billion lenses, a year, possibly entering our treatment facilities. “Which then find their way into the ocean, if they are likely to sink. And when they break down into pieces, we’re not going to find those,” Katherine O’Dea, the Executive Director at Santa Cruz-based Save our Shores, said.

The lenses are heavy enough to sink to the bottom of a body of water. And their chemical makeup means they don’t degrade. The study says they use a different type of plastic, which the treatment process alters in a way that creates mircoplastics – dangerous for marine line.

“(They get) stuck in the animals’ digestive system. If they eat enough of it, they feel like they are satiated. And what happens is they actually die of starvation. Also, plastics absorb toxins in the water,” O’Dea said.

They are nearly impossible to find and clean.

“Once they get in the water, they’re kind of there until we find some kind of method to actually clean all that plastic out in the ocean,” O’Dea added.

The findings from our neighboring state, hopefully, will make a difference in this coastal area.

“(At the) beginning of this project, people said ‘I had no idea this was such a bad thing. I’ve been flushing for X years. And now I’m going to throw it in the trash.’ So you see incrementally it starts to change attitudes,” Charles Rolsky with Arizona State University, said at Monday’s press conference.

Original story:

Ever wonder what happens to disposable contact lenses when it’s time to actually dispose of them?

We asked that question and found that a lot of them are going down the sink or getting flushed down the toilet — adding to the problem of microplastic pollution.

Microplastics are bits of plastic that have been worn down into tiny pieces that are smaller than 5 millimeters. They can be harmful to wildlife.

The fragments are heavier than water, so they settle into the treated sewage sludge, which is often spread on land. The lenses can then make their way into rivers, lakes and the ocean through runoff.

KION’s Aaron Groff has more on how contact lenses are harming the environment here on the Central Coast. The full story on KION News Channel 5,46 at 5 and 6 p.m.