Recycle for Sight Australia

Lions Recycle for Sight Australia
Lions Recycle for Sight Australia is part of the Lions Clubs International Worldwide Eyeglass Recycling Program, headquartered in Queensland and operating throughout Australia and overseas.

We receive requests from humanitarian organisations either travelling to a developing country or supplying shipping container loads of suitable humanitarian aid from Australia to groups in the these countries.

Over the 26 years that the Australian program has operated, the program, has delivered over 7 million pair of refurbished quality spectacles to men, women and children in need  in Africa, Europe, Middle East, Indian Sub- continent, East Asia, and the Far East, China, the countries of the Pacific Rim and Southern Asia and Oceania. In the past 10 years several members of our Marine Branch have been able to use their oceangoing yachts to reach and test villagers, in the remotest areas for eyesight and deliver spectacles to them.

For further information please contact

Chairman Lion Ken Leonard OAM JP(Q), 0418871396, ChairmanR4S@lions.org.au
or Secretary Nicolee Brown, 0401316935,   SecretaryR4S@lions.org.au for any advice.
Our address is PO Box 3021 CLONTARF MDC 4019.

Before you send glasses, please read the following note from Chairperson Ken Leonard…

Dear Lions Club,

1. The most successful program of Lions Clubs International is SIGHT. Already close to 19 million pair of spectacles refurbished by the Lions Recycle for Sight Programme in Australia.
2.  Since 1998 the Lions Clubs of Australia have been successfully restoring SIGHT to many millions of persons in need in Australia and adjacent countries.
3. Lions Clubs and other groups collect used spectacles in their local community and forward spectacles suitable for regrading and recycling to persons in need to the Lions Recycle Centre Redcliffe’s REPLY-PAID PO Box 3021 CLONTARF DC 4019, at no cost to Lions.
4. Some groups collecting and forwarding spectacles for recycling, may be unaware that whilst scripted spectacles can be recycled, broken (and scratched) spectacles cannot be recycled (in Australia) Replacement lens & frames have to be purchased from Asia. Metal frames can be recycled at metal recycler units around the country.
5.  Once a club has collected used spectacles, a quick examination of the spectacles by looking through each pair at a local pole/window frame etc will show whether the “width” of the spectacles varies over the length of the ‘pole” and determine whether the pair is suitable for refurbishing.
   1.  If looking down the “pole” through the spectacles shows a different width than the width of the pole the pair has a prescription and can be recycled.
   2. If the pole width remains constant- the spectacles does not have a script.
      1.  The pair could be sunglasses (if dark coloured) or safety glasses with no script. (These can be saved and given to people in need of sunglasses in the local area.
      2.  Alternatively, the pair has a metal frame that can be recycled through (local) metal recyclers near the Lions Club.
6.  Prior to the pandemic in recent years, the number of workers on specified work for the dole (Centrelink benefit) enabled the Redcliffe Centres to undertake all the recycling process upon receiving the used spectacles in our Reply-Paid Facility.
7. However, that number has decreased significantly and therefore, it is preferable for the collecting Lions Club to undertake an initial examination of each pair of used spectacles collected by a Lions Club as setout above in paragraph 3 and halve the time involved in processing the suitable spectacles recycling.
8. In addition two Correctional Units in Queensland are also involved in the process of recycling used spectacles necessitating that the Correctional Units could “look” at a pair of spectacles as set above and sort those to be washed & graded from those to be discarded.
9. Broadening the diversity of operations and success at the Correction Centre would enable the Recycle Centres to expand the throughput necessary to satisfy the current increasing need for end product as well as expanding the community employment capacity of the Corrections Centres.
10. Broadening the process set out above should reduce the waste through metal recyclers as well as increase the number of scripted spectacles forwarded to groups in need.Yours sincerely

Ken Leonard
PDG Kenneth George Leonard OAM JP(qual) BA(ANU)
Chairman
Lions Recycle for Sight Australia Inc
26 January 2024

Lions Recycle for Sight Australia ABN 37 166 954 081