Hannah Harty

As someone who wears single use contact lenses daily and finds the amount of plastic being thrown away due to this quite troubling, I chose to research around contact lenses and their overall effect on the environment. I began by researching the materials that make up my lenses and found that they are made from silicone hydrogel, which means that not only are they not recyclable, but when they are breaking down, they can give off a toxin that can be cancerous to small animals. When I am not wearing contact lenses, I am wearing plastic-framed glasses. This also troubled me; although this plastic is helping me to see, it is still using a material that is causing a negative effect on the environment. However, I found that there are quite a lot of companies who are beginning to use recycled plastic to make their glasses frames. Some of these companies use marine plastic, such as Waterhaul, Sea2See and Eco and others, like Genusee use recycled plastic bottles. To portray my ideas, I chose to work with both the contact lens packaging and the actual lenses. I focussed on using photography throughout, documenting the different shapes and forms that could be created with the contact lenses. I found using a torch with the photography really interesting, because of the reflections and shadows that were created from the contact lenses. Throughout the project I kept the lenses in a jar of water, because of this bacteria began to grow, causing them to turn a bright green, in contrast to their original subtle blue colour. This bacterial change connotes the damage that the mass disposal of lenses can have on the world. I worked with a range of processes to view the contact lenses in different ways. When viewed through a microscope, the darker edges of the lenses were picked up, creating interesting, ambiguous patterns. I also looked at connecting the contact lenses and packaging through using a blanket stitch; I found that the photography taken of the two chains and their shadows was effective at portraying the idea of multiples. The final image that I chose portrays the contact lenses in a precious and delicate way, effective at depicting the positive use of plastic to correct sight, whilst ignoring the destructive effect mass produced plastic has on the environment. The project has made me aware that I have to consider the choices I make, to ensure I select products that have been designed to consider the potential effect on the environment.