Where do all those 3D glasses go?

I am not a big movie person, only seeing a handful every year. We have developed a family tradition however of seeing a couple or so flicks together now that we are not all together all the time (I will post about the movie tradition in a later post) As such we tend to go to the BIG films together. This past year it has included Alice in Wonderland and Toy Story 3, each in 3D. As I was sitting waiting for the film to begin and playing with the glasses, I had this thought – “What do they do with all those 3D glasses? I asked MillieJupiter on the way home and we speculated there must be some recycling but neither of us knew. So to the trusty internets I went to get the 100%, totally correct, never be wrong answer to this query.

Imagine my surprise to learn that the internets is confused on this matter too. After some quick skimming of several articles (which is how the internets is making us stupid nowadays – no one reads it all, there is too much!) I came up with two possible things that are happening. In one article it lamented the fact that ABC News reported that Good Housekeeping did a study of 3D glasses in metro NYC and found that the glasses were contaminated with lots of bacteria that cause some problems like “conjunctivitis, skin infections, food poisoning, or even sepsis or pneumonia, but docs say that the germs found are no more threatening than what you find on the arm rest, box of popcorn, or movie seats” This made me squirm a bit. A second article stated that “RealD, the company that developed the technology for the current trend in 3D movies, started a recycling program for the glasses last fall to address this problem with cardboard containers at theater exits to deposit glasses.” And “Both Dolby and RealD's recycling system collects the 3D glasses, puts them through industrial dishwashers, and sterilizes them to be reused by another customer.” They figure that they can handle the washing process about 500 times but they do not say what happens next. Remember about 42 million people saw Avatar in 3D and along with Alice, means millions of glasses being shipped to and fro plus the cleaning process itself all of which use substantial amounts of energy for a pair of cheap sunglasses (Sorry ZZ Top!)

Finally one other article mentioned a company called “Oculus3D glasses, by Cereplast Inc., uses bio-based, sustainable plastic resins for the glasses. When discarded, the glasses will return to nature in less than 180 days with no chemical residues or toxicity in the soil.” Another potential solution but I worry about the wasted energy of making millions and millions of glasses for each and every movie coming out and a one use pair of glasses at that. I’m not too sure there is a savings there in environmental impact.

The better long term solution might be for people to invest a few dollars in 3D glasses they would own and bring each time they went to a movie. I’m just not convinced that this would happen consistently enough to be environmentally significant. Say, has anyone seen my 3D glasses? I guess I’ll have to stop at WalMart on the way and get a new pair…