Fountain Pens Made From Recycled Materials

[TSherbs]

Fountain pen manufacturing pollutes the environment. The fewer pens made, the better for the earth and our posterity.

[Parker51]

Actually, the earth doesn't care as it can't care. Nothing humans can currently do mater much to the earth. It spins, eventually it will stop spinning, the sun will stop reacting, etc. The earth is a thing.

Now our posterity, that is something different. Maintaining a skill and producing a thing of long lasting beauty and utility I believe improves our posterity as thinking, living beings.

And in regard to polluting the environment, maybe. If one uses only recycled materials, mined from existing land fills, using renewable and environmentally benign power sources, one could actually improve the environment by making fountain pens.

This is unlikely, but possible.

A partial solution would be to make the pen bodies out of sustainable and environmentally friendly wood, and or rubber, with the nibs being either existing old stocks of nibs that are readily available, especially old steel ones, or perhaps make and sell the pens with no nibs, but instead a design and instructions on how to take a nib from a pen one already has, perhaps in a broken pen and place it in the new pen. This by the way is available from Peyton Street pens. I have one.

Edited August 9, 2018 by Parker51

[TSherbs]

Actually, the earth doesn't care as it can't care. Nothing humans can currently do mater much to the earth. It spins, eventually it will stop spinning, the sun will stop reacting, etc. The earth is a thing....

 

Some people on this thread are expressing their "care." No one attributed that to the earth. Instead of "earth," you can read "biosphere" if you'd like. That thin layer of organic and mineral material within which all known (to us) organisms in the universe have ever lived.

 

My point is that to be honest, the making and consuming (use and disposal) of fewer pens (and less plastic) would be better for the environment. We (including myself) tend to make all sorts of rationalizations and dodges instead of admitting this basic fact which we know to be true. There are very few manufacturing processes that do not put harmful waste into the biosphere. We simply pick which ones we agree with and which ones we don't, usually for selfish reasons. That's one of the sins of humanity.

[Goldberg]

Also there can not be found in the link/article that the recyced plastics are dangerous to one's health.

 

"Why should you care? Microplastics have been shown to absorb toxic chemicals linked to cancer and other illnesses, and then release them when consumed by fish and mammals."

 

Yep, we need more research to say wheter plastic(recycled or not) is a definite danger to our health.

This is the original article:

https://orbmedia.org/stories/Invisibles_plastics/multimedia

 

However every plastic producer will try to minimize the release of plastic products in anything ingested, because the suspect is there.

 

Of course, you are free to drink all the plastic you want, I will make a different choice before the 20 years that it will take for research to point out the dangers.

 

End of OT about ingested plastic

 

Plastics are inherently recyclable. What's preventing us from recycling I'd argue, is inadequate, inappropriate, or … lack of proper consideration on the design stage for what's going to happen at the end of life.

Richard Thompson, Ph.D.

Associate Dean of Research

Science and Engineering

Plymouth University

Edited August 9, 2018 by Goldberg

[Mech-for-i]

 

Some people on this thread are expressing their "care." No one attributed that to the earth. Instead of "earth," you can read "biosphere" if you'd like. That thin layer of organic and mineral material within which all known (to us) organisms in the universe have ever lived.

 

My point is that to be honest, the making and consuming (use and disposal) of fewer pens (and less plastic) would be better for the environment. We (including myself) tend to make all sorts of rationalizations and dodges instead of admitting this basic fact which we know to be true. There are very few manufacturing processes that do not put harmful waste into the biosphere. We simply pick which ones we agree with and which ones we don't, usually for selfish reasons. That's one of the sins of humanity.

 

With my best regards, absolutely agree ... and tha's my point also ... but I am less critical about the recycling and recycled materials , and as far as toxicology goes, I am not an expert to comment on but ultimately I do think technology could catch on to deliver us a better recycling process and also better use of these recycled materials. And I am seeing this day to day ... from ultra high tech one to absolutely low tech approach.

 

And by all mean I think the education for people to NOT to produce so many waste is more important these days than actually bitching about the recycling side. After all, less waste, less recycling needed and also making use of what's already on hand mean less need for a new one .. that goes with all daily items we had , not just pens.

Edited August 10, 2018 by Mech-for-i

[Honeybadgers]

As a paramedic married to a public health worker, y'all need to get your health effects straight.

 

Everything is poisonous. Some of it moreso than others. The dose makes the poison. We use lethal botulinum to keep skin tight and "healthy"

 

That PET bottle is, statistically, not going to kill you before something else.

 

Weight your options. A lot of cancer research is misleading to people because it doesn't focus on the liklihood of causing cancer, only the probability that it can.

 

 

I'm definitely not doing the environment any favors by buying a ton of new pens. But I am doing it favors by buying used ones that have already been around for 80 years and just using them more. I've yet to have to throw away a fountain pen, but I've thrown out hundreds of ballpoints as a paramedic.

[mr T.]

End of OT about ingested plastic

Not relevant at all. This thread is about recycling, not about eating pens or plastics.

 

That PET bottle is, statistically, not going to kill you before something else.

Most fountain pens are made of plastic material. Arguing that plastics (recycled or not) are dangerous for your health would mean that most fountain pens are dangerous.

 

And by all mean I think the education for people to NOT to produce so many waste is more important these days than actually bitching about the recycling side.

Every pen will have an end of useful life. It is about reduce, re-use and recycle.

[woleizihan]

I don't use my pens to drink water.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Statistics say I am going to hit the lottery big, real big.

Like everyone else I cook raw numbers to a nice looking cake....real hollow calories.

 

The older one is, the more plastic one has nibbled, the more chance statistics will not favor me. Dam and I wanted to dance all night on my 100th birthday.

Got to stay away from those plastic bottles of bourbon.

[Manalto]

...recyling is not luxury.

 

It can be: antiques, jewelry, vintage cars, houses that other people have already lived in, etc.

 

The plastic waste-stream problem is the responsibility of manufacturers but the onus has been slyly put onto consumers since the "Don't Be A Litterbug" days and the public has bought into it. Planned obsolescence and its collateral waste is good for business and will continue until there's an economic reason to stop it. A tired old solution, the hypothetical "Well, people should stop buying X" is ludicrous. Should-Land doesn't exist.

Edited August 13, 2018 by Manalto

[TSherbs]

 

The plastic waste-stream problem is the responsibility of manufacturers...

Not exclusively, but partly.

 

A tired old solution, the hypothetical "Well, people should stop buying X" is ludicrous.

No, it's not. It's called accepting one's responsibility as part of a complex problem.

 

Should-Land doesn't exist.

One can try to deny one's role in a problem, but this does not mean that the role does not exist. I might reject my children, say, but it does not mean that I am not responsible for my part in creating them.

[cellmatrix]

Many pen lovers take the recycling concept to its higher degree: we buy used pens, paying enough for it so that others invest time and effort in repair and restoring them, instead of throwing old pens to the garbage bin when they're old, like so many ballpen users do. So is not us who need encouragement to recycle, I would say.

+1

Its sad to see so much energy resources etc go into making and buying new pens when so many great vintage fountain pens out there waiting for a new owner to use them.

[ParramattaPaul]

+1

Its sad to see so much energy resources etc go into making and buying new pens when so many great vintage fountain pens out there waiting for a new owner to use them.

 

I agree. To me, having and using a vintage pen offers me an opportunity to hold an instrument of history since that pen, especially one from the first half of the twentieth century, was used to sign documents, write letters or simply make notes during a time before most of us were born. Heaven only knows, and the imagination can only speculate, who owned it, who used it, and to what places and events it was carried.

Edited August 14, 2018 by ParramattaPaul

[Manalto]

One can try to deny one's role in a problem, but this does not mean that the role does not exist.

 

I wasn't talking about denying one's role in a problem, I was talking about expecting others to comply.

[cellmatrix]

Fountain pen manufacturing pollutes the environment. The fewer pens made, the better for the earth and our posterity.

 

+1

[TSherbs]

 

I agree. To me, having and using a vintage pen offers me an opportunity to hold an instrument of history since that pen, especially one from the first half of the twentieth century, was used to sign documents, write letters or simply make notes during a time before most of us were born. Heaven only knows, and the imagination can only speculate, who owned it, who used it, and to what places and events it was carried.

I like this, too. I only own two vintage pens, though. Still, the involvement of the imagination is rewarding.

[JakobS]

Bringing a pen back to life that otherwise would be forgotten and unused is one of the best things about vintage pens, it connects you to the pen in a greater way than buying one new ever could. It, in a way, is also sustaining a moment in the history of writing, or at least writing instruments.

 

Two bottles of Sheaffer Skrip Permanent Blue-Black "writing fluid" from around 1956 (possesses RC-35, and an ad for the Snorkel) just arrived, and I filled a Persian Blue Sheaffer Craftsman touchdown from 1950-52 with it. By being able to use an ink made around the same time as a vintage pen, also connects you to a time in history that cannot be found in any other way.

 

For years, I have always said the best way to be environmentally conscious in using fountain pens is to buy vintage, and buy as much as you intend to use, or have others use. Reduce, and reuse are the most important parts of the three R's, and there is still so many amazing pens that just need a little love to write for decades more....

[Corona688]

Interestingly, the writing instruments that are made of recycled materials all seem to be disposable pens.

Nearly all pens are disposable pens.

 

Some brands have the idea that you'll be giving back their disposables once they die so you can buy more. Like a ballpoint "refill" with even more waste.

Edited August 14, 2018 by Corona688

[bluebellrose]

Nearly all pens are disposable pens.

 

Some brands have the idea that you'll be giving back their disposables once they die so you can buy more. Like a ballpoint "refill" with even more waste.

And that's only in select countries. BIC in france and papermate in Canada. I just chuck the refills into the papermate recycle bin at Staples as well.