![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.retailgazette.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Helen-Curran-Specsavers.jpg\")
The move means customers can now drop off unwanted glasses, cases, cleaning cloths, contact lenses and contact lens packaging at every Specsavers branch, regardless of where the products were originally purchased.<\/p>\n
In 2025, the scheme collected and recycled 72 tonnes of material from 659 stores and laboratories, almost five tonnes more than the previous year.<\/p>\n
For Specsavers’ head of sustainability for the UK and Ireland Helen Curran, the scheme grew out of a gap in the market rather than a regulatory requirement.<\/p>\n
“Products like glasses and contact lenses do not really fit into standard recycling schemes,” she said. While donation schemes for reusable spectacles have existed for years, there was no straightforward route for glasses, cases, cloths, contact lenses and blister packs to be handled together.<\/p>\n
“We saw an opportunity to make it easier for customers and operationally easier for ourselves.”<\/p>\n
Turning optical waste into raw materials<\/h5>\n
One question facing many retailer recycling schemes is what actually happens to the waste once it disappears into a collection box.<\/p>\n
Specsavers’ programme is run with recycling specialist MYGroup, which separates and processes the material at its UK operation in Hull. According to Curran, the scheme captures a broad mix of products, from old spectacles and cases to contact lens packaging and worn lenses.<\/p>\n
The retailer operates two collection streams: customer-facing recycling boxes in stores and separate collection points within its laboratories. The lab stream is designed to capture higher-value materials such as dummy lenses used in the manufacturing process<\/a>.<\/p>\n Specsavers does not currently separate its reporting between customer returns and internally generated waste, nor does it break down the 72 tonnes by material type. Likewise, the company was unable to provide a figure for what proportion of its total UK waste footprint the scheme represents.<\/p>\n What it can say is that much of this material would previously have entered general waste streams.<\/p>\n “If a company was using a different partner that only took glasses and reused them in a developing country, you would only really use around 20 to 30 per cent of those frames,” Curran said. Cases, cloths, contact lenses and blister packs would typically have been discarded through conventional waste routes.<\/p>\n The collected material is ground down and repurposed into products including joinery boards and furniture. While the recycled content is not currently being incorporated back into Specsavers products, the company has worked with MYGroup to produce Specsavers-branded pens made from material recovered through the scheme.<\/p>\n “It is important for people to be able to say, ‘Wait, waste made this?'” Curran said.<\/p>\n While sustainability projects are often presented as purely environmental initiatives, Curran argues that waste reduction and commercial efficiency increasingly go hand in hand.<\/p>\n “If we look at general waste for a commercial business, it costs more to have more general waste bins,” she said. “Recycling costs less.”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.retailgazette.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/specsavers20sustainability-300x200.jpg\")
The commercial case for sustainability<\/h5>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.retailgazette.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/shutterstock_2591080421-300x169.jpg\")