With the COVID-19 pandemic growing worse every day and some humans still not getting the message to WEAR A MASK, other priorities are slipping through the cracks. Our planet is still getting warmer and being littered with trash that is harming our oceans, ocean life, and us as well. Though let’s be honest, this is a topic the orange dictator in the White House has been trying to avoid his whole presidency so its not shocking. Fortunately, there are people like this father and son team who are trying to help clean up their local coastlines and are making a product we can all use: sunglasses.
According to a source at ladbible.com, father and son, Nik and Harry Robinson, started a company called Good Citizens. Nine-year-old Harry came home from school one day and asked his dad if he could help save our planet somehow. Nik gave it some thought and decided founding Good Citizens was a start. He then decided that he wanted to try making something out of 100% recycled materials. His first thought was to use the single-use bottles that he saw littering the beaches at his home in Australia. Sunglasses seemed like a fairly easy item to try to make. With a lot of hard work and lots of trial and error, they finally got the sunglasses made.
Nik talks about just how challenging this whole process was and how he could see why more companies didn’t want to put in all of the time and effort to make 100% recyclable materials into products:
“One of the biggest waste issues globally is single-use plastic bottles, so I began researching whether recycled PET could be used for products. I couldn’t understand why manufacturers were making products with new plastic when there was such a massive pile of discarded plastic that could be used. I now know why. It’s not easy. It’s taken over two years of research, testing and tweaking. We jokingly call it our time of ‘trial and terror’. There have been times when I’ve found myself exhausted sitting in the car in a layby on the way back from the factory crying because we couldn’t see a way to fix a problem. We were determined for our frames to be 100% recycled and that’s been incredibly challenging.“
Nik Robinson of Good Citizens
Their Story and Check Out Their Shades
Their three styles of sunglasses are called “Lemonade, Cola, and Aqua” (ladbible.com 1). A nod to the liquids that were in those bottles no doubt. Still, its a fun and clever way to remind people where their sunglasses came from. Its nice to see this father and son try to do some good to clean up our planet and also make something that people can buy and use frequently. Because, let’s be honest, how many sunglasses do we all lose or simply not wear and end up buying new ones? These shades, however, are not cheap. They will set you back $99. But this does mean that they will keep making more and keep getting more single-use bottles out of our oceans and off our planet. Its worth the price to pay for these instead of paying the price for not getting these bottles and other recycled materials off of our planet. Just some food for thought. As always, keep staying safe everyone and please wear a mask.
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