The Environmental Cost of Seeing Clearly: Eyeglasses and Global Warming

The Environmental Cost of Seeing Clearly: Eyeglasses and Global Warming

In his recent video, “Can We Stop Global Warming?” Bill Gates provides us with an interesting, if not somewhat alarming, statistic, the average greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from producing a single pair of eyeglasses amount to 8.2 pounds. This figure doesn’t include emissions from glasses cases or cleaning cloths, nor significantly the environmental costs of delivery to the end user. While metal eyeglass frames contribute more to GHG emissions …