Plastic is made of natural, non-renewable resources, such as petroleum, natural gases or coal. Once exhausted, these resources cannot be replaced. Of all recyclable materials, plastic can be recycled and reused with the least effort. Although it was invented in 1860, it has been used widely only in the past 30 years. Five million tons of plastic were consumed in the ‘50s. Today, we are using almost 100 tons of plastic and all over the world there are produced over 80 million tons of plastic.




Most plastic materials are not biodegradable and might persist for even hundreds of years. For example, plastic bags decompose in 20-30 years, while the bottles and other materials containing a large amount of plastic might take even thousands of years.

Plastic has been used in the production of CD cases, video cassettes, vending cups and many others. Nowadays, people recycle plastic and vinyl and manufacture pencils out of these materials. Recycled plastic pencils sharpen as good as wooden pencils and represent a green choice.

Mechanical pencils are also made of plastic; they are easier to use and make drawing and writing more comfortable. Unlike wooden pencils or traditional pencils made of recycled plastic, the mechanical pencil has the advantage of being reusable.

Both mechanical pencils and regular ones contain similar “leads”, a combination of graphite and clay. Most low-cost mechanical pencils are made of polystyrene or other very much alike polymers.

Compared to wooden pencils, mechanical pencils have some advantages:
* You will not need to sharpen them: Once you run out of leads, you can always buy new ones. No matter how much you use the pencil, the line will never be too thick.
* Consistent line: There are many types of leads, which can range from 0.35 to 1 mm thickness. Mechanical pencils are often used in technical drawings, where the thickness of every line plays an important role. Depending on the thickness of the line you have to trace, you can always use mechanical pencils with leads of different thickness.
* Balance: A wood-cased pencil gets shorter and shorter, as it’s used and sharpened. This way, the balance of the pencil changes. In time, it becomes too short to use comfortably.
* Refillable: rather than being used up and disposed of, the pencil can have more leads poured into the top. A mechanical pencil can be used for a long time.

Since wooden pencils are made of wood, it doesn’t take so much energy to produce raw pencil material. Over time, as the pencil is sharpened over and over again, it will become a pile of shavings that can be composted. Still, it has one negative aspect, namely you have to cut down trees in order to manufacture wooden pencils.

The idea of using recycled plastic pencils might not be thrilling, but with all this plastic around us, it is best to recycle and reuse as long as we can.

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