Tombone: a reusable glasses frame
The average life span of glasses is 3 to 4 years. Usually, they are changed because they are worn, broken, or because their owners grew tired with them. Often, even when the owners don’t use them anymore, they still keep them, just in case. But some people give them back to the optician. Then, the glasses are given to associations which take charge to redistribute them. This practice is still little known but allows to save material and to extend the life of glasses.
However, there is two major brakes to this re-use : The first one is a « psychological » brake about hygiene. The glasses touch the skin at two points, the nose pads and the temples. The second one is a problem of fragility regarding the metal frame glasses : the binding screws regulary unscrew themself because of vibrations, threatening of losing or falling the lenses down.
Trombone is a pair of glasses designed in a will of popularizing this practice which allows to give a second life to glasses. Trombone is thought in order to make easier the changing of owner : First, the parts which are in contact with the skin are standard and changeable pieces. On the other hand, the lenses are held thanks to a central binding looklike paperclip piece holding the metal frame tight. Thus, it eliminates the screws.
