Not all eclipse glasses expire. Here's how to donate them to charity
Don't throw out those used eclipse glasses - donate them to charity.
If you aren't saving them as a memento or using them for the 2024 eclipse, you can donate the glasses to Astronomers Without Borders. The charity is collecting eclipse glasses to distribute in schools in South America and Asia to help students experience the total eclipse when it appears in their skies in 2019.
Girl Scout Troop 40977 is coordinating an eclipse glasses collection for the charity at three Buffalo Grove locations. Starting Wednesday, there will be a drop box at the Alcott Center, 530 Bernard Drive, plus additional drop boxes later this week at Longfellow Elementary and Cooper Middle schools.
Astronomers Without Borders is working with corporate sponsors to set up additional drop-off locations. Updates will be posted on the group's Facebook page, www.facebook.com/astronomerswithoutborders.
If you want to mail those glasses right away, you can send them to Explore Scientific,
1010 S. 48th Street, Springdale, AR 72762.
Millions of pairs of glasses were distributed before Monday's eclipse.
If they're from a NASA-approved vendor and aren't scratched, punctured, or torn, you may reuse them indefinitely, according to NASA. The agency says warnings that the glasses "expire" after three years don't apply to the glasses that meet the current ISO 12312-2 standards and are from the approved vendors.