3 years of sustainable Swiss zero-waste eyewear

The jump into cold water has paid off – we remain innovative and committed to creating sustainable Swiss products.

Three years ago, planctons took the brave plunge into the deep end – a highly symbolic start on the icy cold Lake Lungern. Today, the Sarnen-based company can already look back on three milestones that have shaped the journey of the first zero-waste eyewear from Switzerland and provide inspiration for the future.

Over 50 carefully selected specialist opticians in Switzerland already offer the sustainable eyewear models from planctons, from Zurich to Basel, from Bern to Valais, in Ticino, Eastern Switzerland and the Grisons. This development underlines the popularity of glasses made from 100% ocean plastic as well as the growing understanding and need for sustainability among the population. planctons owes its strong national distribution network to all the courageous Swiss opticians who support the project and share its vision.

At the beginning of a planctons is the granulate from Swiss partner Tide Ocean, which extracts the ocean plastic from Southeast Asia and transforms the climate-neutrally transported plastic waste into valuable raw material, a granulate that forms the basis for the spectacle frames. In collaboration with the Swiss University of Applied Sciences in Rapperswil, planctons has developed the formula for the ideal materialisation of the frames with great effort and passion in recent years. The lessons learnt from intensive research have been incorporated into every pressed plate used as the basis for the frames.

This targeted fine-tuning of the materialisation has also made it possible to further develop the designs. The frames of the new planctons models are more delicate, bolder and come in new colours. While stability and optimum wearing comfort were precisely taken into account during the creation process. In the production facility in the small village of Lungern in central Switzerland, the glasses, which are made from 100% recycled ocean plastic, are manufactured piece by piece by hand. The waste is collected and reintegrated into the recycling cycle. This also applies to planctons that have reached the end of their life cycle – they can be returned and recycled.