The Green Writing on the Wall

Paper and pens are two of the most basic office tools, but while we've been recycling paper and using recycled paper for years, pens have mostly gotten left out of the recycling picture.

That's all changed with the release of Pilot Pen Corporation's new BeGreen line of earth-friendly writing instruments.

According to the nifty diagram on the BeGreen website, the pens are made from plastic scraps from other production processes. These scraps are collected, shredded, melted and made into the BeGreen pens. (Scraps from the BeGreen production line get thrown into the same pool of raw materials, closing the loop.)

All BeGreen pens contain at least 70% recycled plastic, but the green stars of the product line are clearly the BeGreen Precise V5 (89.2% recycled content), the VBall BeGreen (81.6% recycled content) and the G-Knock BeGreen (81.5% recycled content). Happily, most of the BeGreen pens can be refilled with black, blue or red ink when they run dry.

Personally, I like the precision of the V5. My handwriting is still pretty much illegible with the V5, but at least it's precisely illegible.

Naturally, BeGreen pens are sold in packaging made from recycled materials. You can find the BeGreen line at major office supply stores and national retailers including Office Depot, Office Max, Staples and Target.

With Pilot's BeGreen line, the pen is now greener than the sword. (Unless we're talking about recycled swords, which is a whole different story...)