Plastic ballpoint pens are an unavoidable part of daily life. I can’t think of a day when I hadn’t come jin contact with one at least once, whether it was to sign a receipt, jot down a grocery list, sign a restaurant check, or do homework. What’s amazing about ballpoint pens is how inconspicuous they are. We borrow them, steal them, loan them out, and lose them, but we never give them a second thought. We are so quick to toss them in the trash the minute we suspect they’ve run out of ink. No tears have ever been shed over the accidental loss of a cheap BIC pen. Perhaps, however, they should be. The externalized cost of these pens is much higher than anyone realizes, and if those costs came out of our pockets, we wouldn’t take these pens so lightly. When you buy a dozen BIC pens for less than two dollars and fifty cents, you don’t pay for the cost of the mistreated workers, air pollution, litter, or health detriments that are all woven into the life cycle of the BIC pen. My interest in this issue was piqued by how pervasive ballpoint pens are in daily life, and how the impact of each pen’s seemingly low externalized costs could be so amplified by their mass production and widespread use. I was perplexed by how something could be so common and easily disposed of at such a low sticker price. Most of all, I found myself wondering at how easily we parted with these pens, leaving both them and their externalized costs out of sight and out of mind. In order to find out why these pens were so cheap, I had to look into the life cycle of the average BIC Cristal pen.
Production
Production, the beginning of the BIC pen’s life cycle, is also the starting point at which externalized costs occur. BIC owns 85% of the factories used to produce its goods, and has factories on every continent but Antarctica. The BIC Cristal ballpoint pen is comprised of three main materials: plastic, metal, and ink. The metal, tungsten carbide, makes up the ball of the pen. The ink is a mixture of dyes, pigments, and solvents. The majority of the pen is plastic, and this is where most of the externalized costs come from. In comparison to the plastic, the metal and ink portions of the pens are negligible in both quantity and externalized costs, so I will focus on the plastic component. The cap of the BIC Cristal pen is made of polypropylene plastic, and the barrel is made of polystyrene. As James Crompton reports, plastic and resin manufacturing in the U.S. draws its supplies from the petroleum, petrochemical, natural gas, and electrical industries. Although plastic itself does not need to be extracted from a natural environment since it is manmade, the petroleum used to make it does. Annie Leonard in The Story of Stuff points out how synthetic materials such as these plastics have unknown effects on both the environment and human health (44). James Speight writes that the processes used to refine petroleum release environmental contaminants. The whole process of refining petroleum, a non-renewable resource, consumes massive amounts of energy. Electrical energy can be generated via renewable resources, such as hydro or solar power. However, natural gas cannot. Even though natural gas is not as scarce as the rapidly depleting petroleum fossil fuels, it is still a nonrenewable resource. Speight also notes that the treatment of the waste created from the refinery process consumes a lot of energy in itself. If these wastes were to be disposed of improperly by companies hoping to cut corners, they would pollute the environment.
The externalized costs from pen production are not limited to the environment; the mistreatment of BIC’s workers is a concern as well. Although BIC emphasizes on its website that 80% of its workers are in free countries in relation to human rights risk, one must not forget the other 20% of workers who live in areas where even their basic human rights are not guaranteed. The only bright side to this is that BIC employs relatively few workers compared to the amount of products it makes since the majority of the production is handled by automated machinery. Workers are often employed to do quality control checks rather than physically demanding labor. Even so, this does not excuse the fact that there are workers producing these pens whose labor may be forced. Along with forced labor are the issues of unsafe working conditions and unfair pay. The fact that BIC owns 85% of its factories, including those located in foreign countires, may sound better than it actually is. Pun Ngai writes that the government has failed to prevent labor protests and resistance due to its lack of ability to enforce labor regulations in foreign factories.In countries where even basic human rights are not guaranteed, it is not hard to imagine the average worker being taken advantage of by a large corporation like BIC.
Distribution
After the pens are made, BIC ships them out to over 32 million retailers all over the world. About half of BIC products are shipped by truck, about half by cargo ship, and about 1% by air. Shipping by air is both costly and bad for the environment. Even though BIC has cut down almost any shipping by air, the trucking and cargo shipping by sea still have significant externalized costs. As Saraçoglu explains, maritime transportation is a significant cause of climate change and reduction of air quality. Nonetheless, it is also the most energy efficient mode of cargo transportation. He goes on to say that emissions from ships have a direct impact on human health, especially since the effects of ship emissions are most concentrated at ports, canals, bays, and other areas where people are commonly located. Trucking as well causes detriments to human health. Trucks release air pollutants, like greenhouse gasses, as well as particulate matter. In fact, David Greene states that transportation is the largest source of carbon dioxide in the US, and 72% of it comes from highway vehicles. Both trucking and shipping by sea can be inefficient when there are no regulations on emissions, and when there is idling of the vehicles or ships. Both transport methods also rely heavily on nonrenewable fossil fuels, which are becoming more and more costly as we deplete them. Luckily, plastic pens are lightweight goods, and BIC has factories on almost every continent, so shipping should not be that inefficient. Nonetheless, the widespread availability of BIC pens in countries all over the world is an indicator of how much distribution, and more importantly pollution, must have occurred to get them there. On the other hand, workers selling the goods once they reach the retail stores are safe from practically any hazards.
Consumption and Disposal
I think it’s fair to say that the majority of people on earth have used a pen at least once. However, the pen has pretty limited uses when you think about it. For such a common and widespread product, it only does two things: allow you to write or draw. The best thing about BIC pens, and all pens in general, is that their consumption has no negative effects on our health. A little writing or doodling never hurt anyone. Even though I have come to realize the many externalized costs involving pens, conserving pen ink by cutting down on unnecessary doodling does not seem to be a good solution. However, we can be more conscious of how we dispose of our pens. The consumption of pens is nowhere near as harmful as their disposal. The two steps are so closely tied together though, since a major part of our consumption of pens is how carelessly we treat them. It may seem silly to treat a cheap pen as something valuable, but we need to change our mindset about the value of the pens in order to change how we use and dispose of them. I treat pens the same way as everyone else does; I never hesitate to let people borrow them, I lose track of them all the time, and I am quick to dispose of them the second I suspect they are reaching the end of their use. This mentality, the way we use and treat our pens, is what leads us to so quickly dispose of them and contribute to the major externalized costs of plastic disposal. I probably use about 50 pens a year, and assuming the average college student uses the same amount, this means The College of New Jersey, with 7,152 students, uses 375,600 pens a year. Think of how much plastic waste that is! Technology advancement is making the pen less and less popular, as Bilton states, but until we stop producing such great quantities of plastic for pens, or until we come to the point where pens are truly obsolete, these externalized costs will remain high.
Whether you live in a developed or developing country, you probably dispose of all of your cheap ballpoint pens in just one way: the garbage. I am guilty of the same consumerism mentality. Unfortunately, this is the most persistent and severe externalized cost that comes from the life cycle of ballpoint pens. BIC proudly states that each of its long-lasting pens can write for two kilometers, but the truth of the matter is that once the pen stops writing, which it inevitably will, you’ll toss it. A few pens lying in a landfill may not sound all that harmful, but when one thinks of how many BIC pens there are in the world, and how many are thoughtlessly tossed in the trash or elsewhere, the amount of plastic really adds up. The plastic that these pens are made of will not biodegrade for very long periods of time, Bernadette Bensaude Vincent explains. She also says “the present is conditioned by the accumulated traces of the past, and the future of the earth will bear the marks of our present. While the manufacture of plastics destroys the archives of life on the earth, its waste will constitute the archives of the twentieth century and beyond”. What’s worse is that certain chemicals in plastics can leach into water sources, infecting both marine habitats and groundwater, says Emma Teuten. This leaching of chemicals infects water sources, harming both wildlife and humans. Avoiding chemically polluted water sources, once tainted, is nearly impossible. Removing the chemicals from the water is also a very difficult task. It is easier to prevent pollution rather than try to clean it up. BIC attributes 88% of its environmental footprint and pollution to the extraction/production phase of the pen’s life cycle, and a measly 1% to disposal. While I acknowledge that production is indeed a major source of BIC’s pollution through its use of petroleum to make plastic, I disagree with the insignificant value they place on the disposal of their products. BIC has taken a step in the right direction by offering several plastic ballpoint pens that are comprised partly of recycled materials, but their classic, best selling Cristal pen is not one of them. Whether or not the pen is made of recycled plastic is one issue, but disposing of even recycled pens will still attribute to externalized costs.
Recommendations and Conclusion
The most important steps in reducing the externalized costs involved in the life cycle of pens involves the production and disposal of pens. Through careful research, I have come to realize how truly expensive BIC pens are. I have become much more conscious of disposing of any ‘easily disposable’ plastic products, like empty floss containers, plastic utensils, plastic packaging or plastic bags; I know now that these products are only’ disposable’ because of how we think of them. In actuality, the costs of throwing plastics away and keeping them in landfills are especially high because we don’t have to pay half of it. The case of BIC pens has enlightened me to an issue of a much larger scale: our production, consumption, and disposal of plastics. Thankfully, there are several options that we as individual consumers have to combat these issues. We can reduce our usage of pens, find a substitute for plastic, or lobby the government or corporations for change.
In an effort to decrease externalized costs, BIC itself has already taken some initiative. It has started a partnership with Terracycle in France and other European countries to recycle pens into pencil holders and benches. In the sustainable development section of its website, BIC says it has already reduced externalized costs by producing pens partially made of recycled plastic, and by partnering with Terracycle. BIC defends its pens’ reputation as disposable because the pens are too lightweight and unsubstantial to be recycled. This, however, is the flawed percept of pens that leads to its externalized cost of disposal. Nonetheless, I support the efforts of BIC to recycle its products as a step in the right direction. According to Terracycle’s website, it has already collected almost 1.5 million writing instruments from 1,200 collection locations. This has raised just over £22,000 for Terracycle. Recycling can be profitable for both BIC and Terracycle. As consumers, we can encourage BIC to spread its pen recycling campaign to countries outside of Europe. After all, Annie Leonard mentioned in her book The Story of Stuff, it is our responsibility as individuals to push our representatives in government and those in power to make changes (65).
We can start to reduce the externalized costs of plastics where they begin – at production. As consumers, we can ban together and demand that BIC get 100% of its workforce from free countries, rather than just 80%. Unfortunately, there are no alternatives to using petroleum in the production of plastics, but we as consumers can influence the demand for pens. As Bilton said in The New York Times, the pen is becoming obsolete thanks to advances in technology. If we start to rely on computers and emails more heavily, our demand for pens will decrease, and their production will decrease as well. The less plastic we make, the less plastic we have to figure out how to dispose of. This is the most efficient way to reduce externalized costs because recycling still requires energy and materials.
In regards to distribution, lobbying for change is the most effective option. We can push for public policy to be passed that regulates the quality of emissions allowed from trucks and ships. We can also push for policies that limit the amount of time trucks and ships can spend idling.
Changes in our consumption of pens may also be beneficial. We can reduce our usage of pens in one way by turning to alternatives like technology and different types of pens. The demand for pens and the pen market have been rapidly changing. Nick Bilton from The New York Times argues that pens are becoming obsolete in the face of developing technology. Perhaps this is because pens will inevitably run out of ink, but you can never run out of paper or ink while typing on a computer. While pens may eventually become obsolete in the far future, both Bilton and Natalia Drozdiak agree that for now, sales of pens will not decline sharply. Turning to an alternative, such as refillable pens, would cut down on plastic disposal dramatically since only the empty ink cartridge would be tossed.
To reduce externalized costs incurred by disposal, we can start to recycle our plastic goods. We can also reduce our use of pens, or find substitutes for the cheap plastic ones. Lobbying for change would be beneficial in this situation as well. We can encourage companies like BIC and Terracycle to expand their recycling programs so they are international. The BIC and Terracycle partnership had started out exclusively in France, the location of the BIC headquarters, but has spread to several other European countries. If we reduce our use of plastic pens by turning to substitutes such as refillable pens or those made of other materials, such as metal, we can cut down on the amount of plastic produced, consumed, and disposed of. We have already started this trend, as pen companies report selling more high quality (non-disposable) pens in Drozdiak’s Wall Street Journal article.
Through all of this research, my perspective on pens, and plastic goods in general, has changed dramatically. I will no longer take cheap plastics for granted. I am much more aware now of the hazards that plastics pose even after they’ve been disposed of. I have learned so much about BIC pens and will definitely think twice about carelessly tossing them in the trash. Most importantly, I will now be more aware of how I treat other seemingly disposable cheap plastic goods, as the lessons learned from BIC pens can be applied to so many other goods as well.
To summarize, there are several important concepts to take away from the simple case of the BIC pen. We have to become more aware of the externalized costs of everyday goods, especially plastic ones. The fact that plastics continue to pollute the environment when tossed in landfills is extremely important especially because these plastics will not biodegrade for generations. The accumulation of the amount of plastics used to make BIC pens is what makes these externalized costs so massive. The widespread usage of pens also requires a widespread solution. Every individual’s effort matters in making a difference. All of these externalized costs seem like too daunting of a problem to solve, but if we all ban together to recycle and reduce plastic production, our efforts, much like the externalized costs of pen production, will be even more widespread and powerful.
Works Cited
Bernadette Bensaude Vincent. Plastics, materials and dreams of dematerialization. J.
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Crompton, J. (2014). Plastic & Resin Manufacturing in the US. IBISWorld Industry Report 32521. Retrieved November 14, 2014, from IBISWorld.
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Greene, D. (2006, April 25). The U.S. Transportation System is the World’s Largest. Retrieved December 4, 2014, from http://www.ncleg.net/documentsites/committees/LCGCC/Meeting Documents/2005-2006 Interim/25 April 2006/Presentations/LCGCC- Greene.pdf
Leonard, A. (2011). The Story of Stuff: The Impact of Overconsumption on the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-And How We Can Make It Better. Free Press.
Ngai, P. (2005). Global Production, Company Codes of Conduct, and Labor Conditions in China: A Case Study of Two Factories. The China Journal, (54), 103-103. Retrieved December 4, 2014, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20066068?seq=3
Saraçoglu, H., Deniz, C., & Kilic, A. (2013). An Investigation on the Effects of Ship Sourced Emissions in Izmir Port, Turkey. Scientific World Journal, 10(1155). Retrieved November 30, 2014, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3807719/
Speight, J. (2013). Refinery Wastes. In The Chemistry and Technology of Petroleum (5th ed., p. 799). CRC Press.
Sustainable Development. (n.d.). Retrieved November 30, 2014, from http://www.bicworld.com/en/sustainable-development/index/
Teuten, E. (2009). Transport and release of chemicals from plastics to the environment and to wildlife. Plastics, the Environment, and Human Health, 364(1526).
Retrieved November 30, 2014, from http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1526/2027.short
The Writing Instruments Brigade®. (n.d.). Retrieved December 5, 2014, from http://www.terracycle.co.uk/en-UK/brigades/the-writing-instruments-brigade-r.html
The Story of Stuff: Case Studies 