The Issue of Single-Use Plastic Pens

Green Forest Ink is an initiative designed to promote the use of eco-friendly newspaper pens, aiming to replace conventional plastic body pens. Crafted by rural women in India, the production of these pens not only provides them with a livelihood but also empowers them. Continue reading to learn more about this impactful initiative led by Gurugram teenagers like Sadhika Anand.

- Sadhika Anand.

The entire world is talking about sustainability and single-use plastic. Worldwide, campaigns have started to combat the issue of plastics with pictures of sea creatures engulfed in plastic. This issue is pressing and the major contributors to single-use plastic have been plastic bags, disposable bottles, and cutlery. However, there is one item that we use daily and yet forget to categorize: plastic pens.

The market is inundated with pens that come in varied types. Most pens are designed to work until they stop. At the end of their lives, they just don’t disappear; they land in landfills because most pens are either not recyclable or people don’t take the action to send them in for recycling. In India, an astonishing 1600–2400 million plastic pens flood the market annually, with only a mere 9 per cent of this plastic waste being recycled at best. During an environmental audit at our school, we discovered that a staggering 98 per cent of students rely on plastic pens, which are disposed of after single use.

Upon recognizing this issue, we, as students, felt compelled to take action. The ubiquitous presence of pens in our lives inspired us to envision a better future for the planet and for future generations. This vision gave rise to Green Forest Ink, an organization dedicated to advocating for the use of 100 per cent sustainable newspaper pens. Our primary goal is to diminish the plastic waste generated within our community. After carefully designing pens with newspaper and a plastic refill, we collaborated with an NGO called “ACT Paper Wings” based in Gurugram (earlier Gurgaon) where the rural women of India make our pens.