Still have your eclipse glasses? Don’t throw them away — recycle them at Parkland College
Aspen Pratt, 7, watched the solar eclipse on Monday at Sunrise Park in Paris, Illinois. Anulika Ochuba/Illinois Student Newsroom
If you still have your eclipse glasses from Monday’s event, don’t throw them away. Local efforts are underway to collect and redistribute eclipse glasses.
Parkland College in Champaign has collection boxes set up at the William M. Staerkel Planetarium and inside the Parkland College Learning Commons, according to a post on Facebook.
The glasses will be donated to Astronomers Without Borders, a nonprofit organization that will vet the glasses for reusability and redistribute them around the world for upcoming annular and total eclipse events.
The organization says on its website that it received millions of donated glasses after the 2017 solar eclipse in the U.S., and has sent a portion of those around the globe: “Millions of donated glasses turned into a few hundred thousand that were vetted for reusability. Tens of thousands were then sent to South America, Asia, Africa and South America again.”
“AWB is committed to continue sending glasses to those who need them for outreach and educational programs around the world,” the website reads.
More information on the AWB program — and a list of collection sites— are posted on the group’s website.