BUFFALO, N.Y. — Now that the solar eclipse is over, think before you throw away your eclipse glasses.
There are places around town where you can drop them off to be donated.
All Erie County libraries will be collecting eclipse glasses this week.
"The libraries in total gave out about 152,000 eclipse glasses to our Erie County residents," Assistant Deputy Director of Development and Communications Joy Testa Cinquino said. "That's a lot of glasses."
If you don't want to hold on to yours as a keepsake, just drop them in the bins at the door.
"We're going to actually give them to the University of Buffalo, which will be sending them to an organization that preserves the glasses, and give those to individuals in countries that don't have access to glasses," Cinquino said.
The organization is called Astronomers Without Borders.
"So that people can continue to see eclipses going forward for many years," she added.
Thin Ice Gift Shop on Elmwood Avenue is also collecting undamaged glasses through the end of April.
They plan to send them to schools in Latin America for the annular eclipse later in October.
"In our communities, libraries have given them out, stores have given them out, stores have sold them," Cinquino said. "So there's hundreds and hundreds and thousands of eclipse glasses around. Don't throw them out. Let's reuse them. Let's make it good for our economy for our keeping things green and for helping our neighbors in other countries."