Interview: Snowballing sustainability

Eastman Chemicals is not one of eyewear’s household names, but it is going to be… once again. The company has been producing the flakes used to make acetate sheets for eyewear manufacturing since the 1930s, but driven by the sustainability challenges facing the industry, recent years have seen the Eastman take steps out of the shadows and into the limelight.

Eastman offers several materials for use in the eyewear sector: Acetate Renew; Tritan Renew and Tenite Renew. As a sector dominated by acetate and wasteful subtractive manufacturing, it is perhaps Acetate Renew that has the biggest impact on the eyewear industry so far, but Tenite and Tritan are also seeing widespread adoption by companies producing injection moulded mass-market eyewear at a lower price point.