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Eclipse Glasses Will Get New Life In Redistribution Program

Caroline Ballard

If you still have your eclipse glasses, don’t throw them away just yet. The Wyoming Department of Transportation is partnering with the organization Astronomers Without Borders in an effort to redistribute them.

J O’Brien, a spokesman for WYDOT, said this was the most widely viewed eclipse in history, and many people used solar filter glasses to see it.

“We believe that somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 million of these glasses were distributed,” O’Brien said. “So obviously the first component would be we don’t want to see these in a landfill.”

WYDOT and Astronomers Without Borders will donate the used glasses to areas in South America and Asia that will experience a total solar eclipse in 2019.

“A lot of these areas have very poor schools. They just don’t have science programs, or any sort of hands on scientific experimentation opportunities, so this is a really good opportunity to get those students some firsthand experience,” said O’Brien.

You can turn in used eclipse glasses to the WYDOT offices in Casper, Cheyenne, Wheatland, Riverton, and Jackson. Astronomers Without Borderswill also be collectingthe cardboard frames at the Tate Geological Museum in Casper, the Lander Medical Clinic, the Big Piney Library, and Calico Italian Restaurant in Jackson.

O’Brien says if you can’t make it to one of those places, you can still recycle the frames after popping out the solar filter lenses.

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