You can get a big packet of pens for a buck or two at the dollar store. But is the cheap price per pen worth it? Or is the dollar store pen not so mighty a bargain? And how do dollar store pens differ in ecological footprint?
We went looking for research on dollar store vs. name brand pens and couldn’t find much. However, one of our volunteers who has bought a lot of pens at dollar stores says that she finds that they don’t last as long. Either they contain less ink or the ink/pen is poorer quality so becomes unusable more quickly.
Think about how many plastic pens you have in your house. Then multiply that by millions of households. Once upon a time, each person may have owned only one or two pens! They were considered prized possessions. Now we treat them as disposable. All those disposable pens stack up to a massive mountain of plastic waste, one that will take many years to decompose.
If you buy your pens at the dollar store and find yourself tossing pens regularly, consider testing them against a better quality pen to see if the dollar store ones are actually a bargain — or if you get what you pay for. Let us know what you learn!
Better yet, consider buying a pen that is made from recycled plastic or another more eco-friendly material and is refillable! Let’s see if we can cut down on the number of plastic pens heading to the landfill.
How many plastic pens are in your household? Get your kids to find them all and count them, and let us know!
