Glasses recycling schemes (paging R D S)

Vision Aid Overseas used to match them up as best poss Rx wise with those in need but that stopped some time ago, they want donations of new frames and lenses now in min quantities, they have centres overseas where they'll do an eye test and glaze up a new pair.

If you hand old pairs in at an optician they might just bin em? At best they'll (we do) send them somewhere, we hand them off to Dx for free and VAO get the recycle value. Which must be next to FA.

I think that some poorer countries do accept old distance or reading glasses that can be handed out to people on the basis of being near enough to their requirements and not unaffordable - rather like the cheap reading glasses that you can buy in Boots and other places.

If they are very different prescriptions for each eye or to correct astigmatism, then I can't see them of being any use, as finding anything close to an individual's needs would be very difficult.

I've got a nephew works in specsavers, spoke to him tonight, says the charity they used to send them all to went bust during covid, but apparently visionexpress still take them ...

VAO don't even recycle them now:

For poor Indians, it seems China can ship pre-made glasses for about a dollar a time so just import a container of pre-made glasses of different strengths and people pick the ones that best suit their eyesight. Crude but simple, scalable and cheap.

Theo

Its difficult for bespoke prescription glasses as you would probably never find anyone with exactly the requirements in both eyes would you? Maybe they are just looking for the basic reading glasses type or to recycle the frames?

Brian