Day 159 of 365 - The Trouble With Pens
Before typing it here, I wrote this post, longhand, in a notebook, using an old pen resurrected from a drawer. Everyone has a drawer, or some kind of container that holds a collection of old pens, right? These usually include a variety with business or other organization names on them, the kind given away as promotions at events.
Also in my stash are ones rediscovered from periodic cleaning out of desk drawers, old backpacks and so on. I don't know where this one I was writing with came from, probably something left behind by one of my boys. It's one of those fat ones with a fine roller ball tip, so it writes nice and smoothly. But, I can tell it's running out of ink, because of the faintness in the writing.
This is my beef with modern pens! Seriously, are they made for obsolescence even more now, like throwaway plastic razors? The short answer is sadly, yes.
I write quite a bit by hand, as well as on the computer. Usually in back to school sales, I will buy a box or two of pens. They used to last me a year. But now, it is stunning to me how quickly pens purchased in just the last year or two run out of ink. It just seems so wasteful!
When recently searching through our stash, I came across a few 'nice' pens, meaning ones with metal casings which are attractive, the kind that used to be given as a gift. These ones actually open for replacing the ink cartridge. The challenge will be finding something that fits in them. I have set them aside to take to an office supply store, but am not optimistic about that outing.
I do remember having fountain pens when I was in school, not the kind that draw ink from a bottle, but the more modern ones which held replaceable plastic cartridges of ink. As a Baby Boomer, I have lived through the evolution of the modern pen.
Longer ago than I'd realized, in 1953, a French entrepreneur formed the Bic pen company for a disposable ballpoint called the Bic Cristal. It was launched in North America in 1960 and quickly rose to popularity in the emerging trend of inexpensive, disposable products. It was part of the manufacturing revolution in plastics. It was cheap, well designed, and wrote smoothly. Since then the disposable pen market has boomed, with a plethora of designs for every need.
Disturbingly, nobody was thinking at the time how many of these convenient pens would end up, still sitting, years later in landfills or in the trash vortex of the ocean.
With increasing environmental awareness about pollution and the limited resource of petroleum, which is the basis of plastics, perhaps future generations will move away from plastics as a mainstay of daily life. Maybe they will even go back to using something like a refillable fountain pen, in a modern design of course.
Oh, and the pen I used to write this post? It can't be refilled with a new cartridge, despite being pricier than your basic disposable pen. It does not open. Unfortunately, another plastic item to go in the trash.
Also in my stash are ones rediscovered from periodic cleaning out of desk drawers, old backpacks and so on. I don't know where this one I was writing with came from, probably something left behind by one of my boys. It's one of those fat ones with a fine roller ball tip, so it writes nice and smoothly. But, I can tell it's running out of ink, because of the faintness in the writing.
This is my beef with modern pens! Seriously, are they made for obsolescence even more now, like throwaway plastic razors? The short answer is sadly, yes.
I write quite a bit by hand, as well as on the computer. Usually in back to school sales, I will buy a box or two of pens. They used to last me a year. But now, it is stunning to me how quickly pens purchased in just the last year or two run out of ink. It just seems so wasteful!
When recently searching through our stash, I came across a few 'nice' pens, meaning ones with metal casings which are attractive, the kind that used to be given as a gift. These ones actually open for replacing the ink cartridge. The challenge will be finding something that fits in them. I have set them aside to take to an office supply store, but am not optimistic about that outing.
I do remember having fountain pens when I was in school, not the kind that draw ink from a bottle, but the more modern ones which held replaceable plastic cartridges of ink. As a Baby Boomer, I have lived through the evolution of the modern pen.
Longer ago than I'd realized, in 1953, a French entrepreneur formed the Bic pen company for a disposable ballpoint called the Bic Cristal. It was launched in North America in 1960 and quickly rose to popularity in the emerging trend of inexpensive, disposable products. It was part of the manufacturing revolution in plastics. It was cheap, well designed, and wrote smoothly. Since then the disposable pen market has boomed, with a plethora of designs for every need.
Disturbingly, nobody was thinking at the time how many of these convenient pens would end up, still sitting, years later in landfills or in the trash vortex of the ocean.
With increasing environmental awareness about pollution and the limited resource of petroleum, which is the basis of plastics, perhaps future generations will move away from plastics as a mainstay of daily life. Maybe they will even go back to using something like a refillable fountain pen, in a modern design of course.
Oh, and the pen I used to write this post? It can't be refilled with a new cartridge, despite being pricier than your basic disposable pen. It does not open. Unfortunately, another plastic item to go in the trash.
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