Hmm. This is a tricky one! While wasteful there might actually be a lot of impediments to passing these on just due to regulations regarding dispensing contact lenses. And while there’s a lot of value there overall, since they’re a daily disposable lens type whoever receives these is looking at the hassle of finding the exact right person for each prescription to only hand them a 5 day supply of their contacts! Nice if it’s convenient, but you’re more likely to generate more waste getting these distributed vs. just letting them be dumped.
All that being said I’d say first check with a local Lion’s club. They’re probably the biggest charity distributing eyeglasses and hearing aids, but I don’t know if they deal with contacts at all for the above reasons.
While charity would be nice, just to cut the waste you could also try calling Bausch & Lomb directly and explaining the situation. I don’t know if there would be any chain of custody/safety type concerns where they would only trash them as well, but perhaps they would take them back or help direct them to a local sales rep. However it’s also quite possible these were trashed by a B&L representative themselves and not by decision of the optical business. These reps often come to doctor’s offices on a regular schedule and handle all of the inventory & reordering of their companies samples so the Dr. doesn’t have to. These could be samples that are for discontinued product lines, recalled batches, etc.
Sorry to be a downer, I hope you figure something out!
Box quantity side note! - I’m pretty sure the 5-packs would be the astigmatism type lenses. They’re smaller pack sizes and seemingly uneven because they’re far more specialized and it would be exceedingly rare for someone to have the exact same prescription in both eyes. So while someone with a more generic prescription may walk out with a single 10-pack trial which would be split between both eyes for 5 days, those with astigmatism would receive two 5 packs with a specific pack for each eye.
To give some idea of how much more specific the astigmatism are, it looks like you probably have the full trial set of Infuse lenses there, but there are probably at least 5 or 6 more cases of the Biotrue lenses to complete that set. So there was either a reason for getting rid of that specific batch, or there will be many more passing through that curb in the days prior/to come!
Wow, thanks for this superb comment. I actually went into the store that threw these out and recorded my conversation as I addressed this issue with them. I'll write another post about that soon, but there are no more for now. I learned about astigmatism lenses and that you're right on most points. I did research and see that the Lion's Club would probably be a strong local option and will contact them tomorrow. I didn't think about contacting the manufacturer, which is a brilliant idea. I don't know how to get to the right contacts (honestly no pun intended or wanted) in the company, but will try that if the Lion's Club doesn't want them.
No problem! Your post easily caught my eye as I scrolled past! 😆 I'm a licensed optician for a while yet... I forget exactly when my certification expires. I never dealt with contacts much though. I worked in Delaware and the regulations there actually prohibited having a Dr. in a chain optical shop, and in PA the Dr. on site had to be an independent business. So the real ordering and dispensing never fell in my realm.
I always found the customer service lines at the contact manufacturers to be surprisingly helpful! There may even be a 1-800 number printed on the boxes or a quick Google search will do. But I'd just call the general customer care line and go from there if it comes down to it.