We live in a world of plastic. Plastics are cheap, light, strong and highly pliable materials - their versatility has enabled the mass manufacturing of innovative and advanced products in all sectors of society. Their use in optometry has helped keep costs down, reduce infection risks and improve patient care.

Optometrists, like all medical professionals, use a considerable amount of plastic in their clinics and in the products they sell to patients, from disposable tonometer prisms and drug and eye-drop containers, to spectacles, contact lenses and their associated packaging and cleaning paraphernalia. 

But plastics can take hundreds of years to biodegrade, while disintegrating into microscopic particles. These microplastics end up contaminating soils as well as rivers and seas, causing direct harm to many species, disrupting ecosystems and ultimately putting human health and food sources at risk. Plastics also keep the world dependent on fossil fuels, and concern is growing about the harmful chemicals they contain, such as endocrine disruptor bisphenol A.

Politicians and the public are becoming more aware of this impact and more mindful of their use of plastic, helped in no small part when the BBC aired disturbing footage of the damage plastic is wreaking in the oceans – the so-called ‘Blue Planet’ effect.