Sustainable plastics for the optics industry

According to Statista, the number of people who wear glasses in Europe varies somewhere between 20% – 70%, depending on the country you live in. And these statistics do not consider the use of sunglasses. But how sustainable is the production of glasses? 

The chemical company Evonik thought about this question and concluded that to ensure lenses remain of high quality, recycled materials are not a good fit. Instead, the solution they found, is to create a sustainable building block needed for lenses, that reduces CO₂ emissions by 50%. 

This building block substitutes 40% of fossil material with bio-based material in the value chain. An added benefit is the fact that it is produced using only renewable energy. The resulting lenses are lightweight and crack resistant. So far they have found their use into sunglasses,  visors for ski and snowboard goggles.

Associated SDGs