Do you ever had your lucky pen?
In old days, students get to write with Pen in their fifth standard and the only pen options they had was Fountain pen, as use of other types of pen considered will hamper the penmanship - beautiful handwriting. One student used to have maximum two pens, the second as a backup. These pens suppose to last forever, as all one have to do is refill the ink, in-case the nib got broken, just change the nib and keep working. On average a pen last for ever, until and unless it is dramatically broken or lost somewhere.
The value of gifting someone a pen was meant a lot, was considered as a big honour and reserved for special occasion. Upgrade use to happen from simple fountain-pen to Fountain-Chinese-pen or Fountain-Pilot-pen. There was always the craving of having a gel pen or a ballpoint pen. However, even a ballpoint or gel pen was selected based on whether refill is available or not. So, usually one Reynold pen last for several years with multiple refills until we lost it somewhere or break it in fights :)
As the time passed by; with upgrade in technology, ease in manufacturing and strong supply-chain in place: availability of cheap pens and their variety have increased multi-fold.
New habits were formed, rather a single pen, an individual started buying complete set of pens.
What is the average minimum number of pens a student holds today?
What is the average minimum number of pens a professional hold today?
What is the average minimum number of pens a non-professional, a non-student holds today?
What is the average minimum number of colour pens a child holds today?
According to EPA (2019), Americans ( population 0.3 billion) throw away 1.6 Billion disposable pens every year. Estimate how the numbers will looks for complete earth , with total population of 7.9 billion!
I reflected the stock of my pen treasure.
Today's count 2 ballpoint pens + 3 highlighters on my table, and one in my bag, one in purse, 8 new packed ones, 23 used pens in the stock. Over this, 5 highlighters, 1 set of 12 colour pens, 1 set of 100 colour brush pens and may be 6-8 pens in my office pen-stand. One in these is my luckiest THE Fountain-Chinese-pen, from my school days now it is just resting.
The strange thing is I remember only buying 1 set of 5 pens in last two years which I used and disposed already.
To my surprise, even consideration of the topic "pen going to land-fill" not much popular in sustainable living or eco-green solution thinking !
Broadly, for ease in understanding I classified pens by following two types :
1. Ball-point pen :
a. Disposable or refill pens where ink is oil based and dries faster than other types. However, since ink is thick these pens use less ink as you write
b. Rollerball pen, similar designs as ballpoint pens but with water-based ink.
c. Gel pens : similar to ball-point pen, except use pigments instead of regular dyes
2. Fountain pen : refill with varieties of nibs, inks, ink-bottles available
Image courtesy Jetpens.com
Otherwise, there is whole range of pens, like Whitener pen, Marker pen, Highlighter pen, Stylus pen, Colour pens, etc. the list is quite big.
In addition, the variants of different types & size of tips/nib, types of inks etc. it will be a big thesis to capture and analyze all available types! There is high probability, that I will leave some varieties, so better I decided to stick with two basics, which I am most familiar with.
To understand the perspective of impact on environment during the complete life-cycle of pen , I got basic comparison below for Fountain pen Vs Ball-point pen
Study shows, Ball-point pen uses overall 13 times resources over a Fountain pen, and emits almost 13 times more CO2 in the complete life cycle as compared to fountain pen.
Can pen go in recycle bin?
Any type of pen, highlighters, as mentioned in table above have different kinds of metals, ball-point pens, highlighters etc. with remainder of ink also. So one has to disassemble the pen - separate out plastic, metal, rubber and choose the right bin for them. Imagine a tip of pen in tones of metal scrap!
So practically no! It just goes to landfill.
There are few organizations like Terracycle, BIC who collects and basically recycle the plastics for outdoor furniture like bench, picnic tables etc. However, this also limits to only few countries; and within a country say in America if there is one plant what it cost to environment while travelling across nation.
What are options, one can't simply stop writing !
1. Reduce the number of pens used. Don't loose your pens, and write with them until the very last drop.
2. Switch to using a fountain pen, or some alternatives of available eco-pens .
3. Recycle - with dis-assembly > material separation > sorting > dispose or upcycle by converting them in some artwork. I use the outer body in airing the pot-soil.
Want to join in this challenge of stopping the littering by pens around, the disposable pen proliferation, explore some alternate options available in the market at www.betterliving.how .
Remember buy them only when you really need them, and don't keep collecting new pens, even if they are free.
Do share and post your ideas for reducing this rapid increase of use-and-throw pens, and also change the habit of having so many pens !