How to Donate Contact Lenses (+ What Else to Do With Unused Contacts)

How to Donate Contact Lenses

If you have unopened, unexpired contact lenses that you’d like to donate, you have two options: DonateContacts.com and Lions Clubs International. To gather information about these donation programs, we viewed their websites and contacted the companies.

DonateContacts.com

Founded by teenage philanthropists, DonateContacts.com accepts unopened, unexpired contact lenses, as well as sealed contact solutions and contact lens cases. To donate, send your items to:

Ella Millen
2602 NW 41st Street
Boca Raton, FL 33434

After it receives your donation, DonateContacts.com will sort them and send them to its distribution partner, Feed the Children, which provides support to families in poverty in the U.S. and worldwide.

Note that DonateContacts.com is not a nonprofit organization and cannot provide donation receipts for tax purposes.

Lions Clubs International

Lions Clubs International accepts unopened contact-lens donations. The service organization maintains domestic recycling centers in the following states:

• Alaska
• Arizona
• California
• Iowa
• Minnesota
• New Jersey
• Oregon
• Texas
• Virginia
• Washington
• Wisconsin

These centers accept donations either in person or by mail; to find a local center’s contact information and confirm its donation policies, see the Lions Eyeglass Recycling Centers webpage.

Recycling Contact Lenses

If you’d like to recycle your contact lenses rather than donate them, you can take advantage of Bausch & Lomb’s One By One Recycling Program. This program allows you to reduce microplastic waste by dropping your contacts off at participating optical centers.

You can also take your contact lenses back to your optician, optometrist, or ophthalmologist. Some of these medical professionals will give you credit for unused contacts or recycle them for you.