Some of our glasses are rubbish (literally)
Our purpose isn’t simply to create a world where glasses-wearers can choose stylish, affordable glasses. It’s also to remake harmful waste products into beautiful, environmentally friendly products. Taking something that was thoughtlessly discarded and finding a new use for it.
For us, right now, that means recycling trash into fasionable eyewear. We began on this path when we learned many discarded plastics were thermoplastics, which can be melted and moulded into new products. As we kept investigating, a new frontier in frame making opened up.
So far, we’ve made limited-edition glasses from:
- milk bottle tops from local cafes
- marine debris collected from New South Wales beaches
- waste plastics from customers/friends/passersby
- recycled wood chips
- beer keg caps used by Newtown brewers Young Henrys (giving new meaning to the phrase ‘beer goggles’!)
- fishing nets discarded by trawlers and washed up on the beaches of Arnhem Land. The amazing durability that makes these ‘ghost nets’ so devastating to sea life makes this Nylon 6 ideal for us.
Our R&D is ongoing, and one of our big goals is to make our own polymer from recycled plastics. We can’t do it alone, so we’re leading a Cooperative Research Centre Partnership (CRC-P) with the University of New South Wales Smart Lab to develop this.
Glasses made from rubbish are going from a dream to reality, while helping clean up our environment. Sweet!