Plastic bottles are a cause of concern for the environment. They also fill up the landfills and take hundreds of years to decompose. Though there is a lot of awareness against plastic, plastic bottles are still being used by millions of people all over the world. They can be recycled so that new plastic need not be manufactured. There are many innovative uses of recycled plastic, and the latest seems to be ecofriendly pens made from water bottles. These unique pens are being called B2P pens, meaning ‘bottle to pen’ pens, and manufactured by Pilot, one the world’s leading manufacturers of pens. Let’s take a closer look at water bottle recycling for ecofreindly pens:
The widespread use of disposable water bottles in America
Image Source : officesupplygeek
Americans use a staggering amount of water bottles, about 48 billion bottles every year, and approx 80% lands up in landfills. These bottles take between 500-1000 years to degrade. This results in a huge challenge for the planet. According to a survey, disposable plastic water bottles are the primary water source for many Americans.
When asked, 70% said they felt guilty about using these bottles. 29% however said that they were not concerned about the earth at all!
Plastic once manufactured take hundreds of years to degrade, so the production of new plastic must be reduced. The only solution is recycling every bit of plastic to meet our needs.
The process
Though the pens made by recycling water bottles are a good idea and would save the planet from some amount of toxic plastic pollution, (till you throw the pens away) and landfill space, you should keep avoiding plastic bottles.
Pilot has now come up with a new retractable pen made with disposable water bottles. Recycling plastic bottles into ball pens is a new concept that might convert quite a few plastic water bottles into pens. These pens are composed of 89% post consumer waste bottles and are designed to look like the bottles they are made from.
Features of the pen
The recycled plastic pens are durable and sturdy, giving them a longer life. The ridges in the pen give you a good grip and gel ink inside it gives the impression of water flowing inside.
Two pens can be made from a single bottle, and as these pens are manufactured in a way that they won’t be disposed off soon, water bottle recycling for eco friendly pens may turn out to be a good idea.
According to Pilot, the pens can be refilled which gives them a longer life. You can fill the pens with any vibrant color of your choice. You also have the option of choosing recycled ball point pens from the company.
The company decided to manufacture eco friendly pens made from water bottles, as they want to reduce plastic pollution and make their planet greener. They want to give consumers a choice to go green in their choices, right down to the humble pen.
The lack of ‘zero waste’ mentality
Recycling plastic bottles into ball pens is a small step towards spreading awareness among people about ‘zero waste’, i.e. the effort to live your life in a way that you make use of everything in a way that you have zero waste. Though it’s a tough thing to do, it’s not impossible and some people in the world actually are leading ‘zero waste’ lifestyles. This can happen when you reuse and recycle everything that you use. With composting, you can turn your food scraps and other organic waste into soil which is a nutrient for your plants.
Some Berkeley students concerned about sustainability conducted a ‘waste audit’ on a few campus trash cans, and found that the majority of waste was plastic of different kinds. They found that plastic pens that had run out of ink were thrown away instead of being refilled.
We must start thinking and we must consciously try to reduce the waste that we produce, especially the kind that is not biodegradable and cannot be recycled or reused. Going green is probably the only solution for the planet at this point of time, no matter whether it’s using a ‘green’ pen or using organic products, or car pooling – it will help in every single way.
