Do you need all those pens? 5 tips to be more sustainable with stationery
Do you get giddy in a stationery store? Getting your card/cash out to buy some new pens, those cute white gel pens or gold one, pretty notebooks and rainbow post its.
A lot of us do and end up having too much stationery that is not used or used for a short time then eventually thrown away. In the USA alone 1.6 billion pens are thrown away each year, imagine how many pens are thrown away globally. That is outside of the paper waste created in offices both home and work.
So how can you be kinder to the planet and your stationery;
Before you buy any more pens or markers, finish what you have. Replacing your plastic ball point pen with an ink pen is a pretty and sustainable option, as long as you don’t spill the ink on yourself,
Think before you print that email, go paperless. If you must print, do it double sided,
Have a recycled paper bin in your home or work office. These scraps can be used as scribbling paper or idea pads,
For parents, do not feel the pressure to buy new school stationery each new term. Encourage your child to use up their pens and pencils and only buy when they are done,
Toddler activities can sometimes use up a lot of paper. Try and reuse paper as much as possible, an example is if you get something delivered in a brown bag reuse it as drawing or craft activity paper.
