The Right Optics podcast is brought to you by Silmo, the leading eyewear and optics trade show. Broadcaster Nick Coffer interviews key personalities from the optics world. Hear their stories, their passion for optics and their insight into the industry.

Recycling eyewear: an industrial, economic and environmental challenge

In this episode rooted in today's pressing issues, Nick Coffer welcomes Dominique Royet, CSR expert in optics, and Julien Tremblin, General Manager Europe at TerraCycle, for an unflinching deep dive into the behind-the-scenes reality of eyewear recycling — a world far more complex than it appears.

Between multiple materials, fragile economic models and still-emerging collection chains, they dissect why a pair of end-of-life spectacles so often fails to find a second life. Far from conventional discourse, the episode pinpoints the real constraint: not technical know-how, but industrial organisation and the volumes needed to make recycling viable. Manufacturers, opticians and distributors are all challenged, and tangible solutions — in-store take-back schemes, eco-design, new recycling streams — are beginning to sketch out a more responsible future.

Key takeaways:

  • The multi-material challenge: plastics, metals, glass, polycarbonate… separating the components of a single frame remains the true industrial obstacle.
  • Economics before technology: recycling is feasible, but without sufficient volumes or organised collection, spectacles end up incinerated or forgotten in drawers.
  • Shared responsibility: manufacturers, opticians and distributors each have a role to play in building sustainable recycling streams.
  • Practical solutions exist: take-back programmes, in-store collection points and more durable design are all levers already within reach.
  • TerraCycle as a model: the company's expertise in complex waste offers an inspiring framework for rethinking end-of-life frames across the entire sector.

Podcast in French