Fort Wayne business collecting thousands of solar eclipse glasses for reuse

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – Are you still looking to donate or recycle your solar eclipse glasses? One Fort Wayne business is still collecting them through this Saturday, May 4th.

You can bring them to Vessel Refillery FW, located at 10376 Leo Road, Suite G, Fort Wayne, IN 46825. A map of this location can be found below.

The business is partnering with Astronomers Without Borders to donate the glasses for future reuse and redistribution. Owner of Vessel Refillery Heather Eracleous had the idea knowing there would be an abundance of glasses after the eclipse. She did a simple Google search and decided to connect with the Astronomers Without Borders organization. Thus, her business became a site for people to drop off solar eclipse glasses.

Eracleous expected maybe a box or two. Instead, she has received tens of thousands of them and the boxes have piled up in her business. She has glasses donated from Oklahoma, Texas, New York, Wisconsin, and the state of Washington, plus plenty of additional local donations. One organization donated 15,000 pairs of glasses!

What has been special for Eracleous is that people will come in to drop off the glasses and will have an eclipse story to tell. Some didn’t travel far, some were in the path of totality, and some stayed in Fort Wayne. A lot of them did not buy glasses until about two or three days before the eclipse. Everyone has told different stories, but most would tell of how wonderful the experience was of viewing the eclipse. Eracleous is excited everyone’s been able to see something like this in their lifetime and loves chatting with people about it.

All of these glasses will need to vetted though after collection is complete. The glasses have to be ISO certified, have a certain number on them, and be made by certain manufacturers. The lenses also need to not have any damage. This is done to ensure they are safe for the next people to use them.

There are many other locations across the country collecting these glasses. You can click here to learn more. While the exact location of where these glasses will go from the refillery is yet to be determined, they will help out those in need. Eracleous says “they’ll go to students in South America, Latin America…all over, you know, poorer parts of the world that wouldn’t be able to afford getting these glasses or have the means to get them otherwise.”

A volunteer night to vet all the glasses will occur on Thursday, May 9th. Keep an eye on their website or Facebook page for more details if you are interested in participating. There may be a second or third volunteer night if all the glasses cannot be vetted in one night.

Vessel Refillery is a refillery where the idea is to come in with your own empty containers from home, such as a shampoo or dish soap container, and you can refill them with the products they carry. These products are organic or gluten free; everything is safe for you and the environment.

We hope you enjoyed the eclipse and will consider adding your glasses to the boxes to be donated through this Saturday! Eracleous would love to hear your eclipse story…