Refillable Pen made from cork and metal with 1 spare black ink refill. = £9

Refill set includes: 5 x black ink refills and 5 x blue ink refills. 10 refills total per set. = £7

Please note: There is a spare refill included with the cork pen, make sure to check the packaging before you recycle it as the refill is hidden in the packaging!

Reusable Cork Pen and Ink Refill Set

From £6.30

Quantity

Plastic pens. Biros, ballpoints, Bic, all those free branded pens given out at any and every event… we all generally tend to have a lot of these floating around the house, you can never find one when you need it but they also turn up everywhere, down the back of the sofa being a likely place to randomly find one at least. Easy to lose because you know you will find another pen somewhere, which means they are often left as litter accidentally or otherwise.

Think of how many pens you’ve ‘lost’ over the years. Where are those pens now? Some are likely to have, shall we say, escaped, into the environment. Sad isn’t it.
If the growing collection of random plastic pens in your house annoys you, then you will appreciate the simplicity and utility of this refillable pen. It takes up far less space!

If you own a pen you consider to be special in some way (such as this one) then you are more likely to keep track of it and know where it is when you need it. A precious time saver as you will no longer have to search high and low for a biro or ask someone if they have a pen you can use. Your pen will never run out thanks to the refills (as long as you remember to order some refills of course) and so you won’t be stuck with a useless pen which has stopped working but that you think will get its act together if you just leave it for a bit or that you keep scribbling pointlessly with on a blank piece of paper.

This pen, being made out of cork, is very comfortable to hold. Ergonomic design par excellence if you ask me. Hard, bizarrely shaped plastic pens (why are some hexagonal?) will be a thing of the past once you get your hands on one of these fantastic refillable pens. If you are still someone who has to write by hand a lot, then a comfy pen such as this will be a gamechanger.

As you can see on the photo of the refills, they do have a tiny bit of plastic at the end (showing which colour ink the refill is) so this product is not 100% plastic-free, but this pen will help you to reduce at least 90% of the single-use plastic you would otherwise be using writing with standard plastic pens.
This old chestnut again, yes, it is, of course, more expensive than a multi-pack of biros from the pound shop. However, the many benefits of this pen outweigh the price tag I’d say. Think of how many plastic pens you would get through in comparison to one of these refillable pens! You will save a lot of single-use plastic over the lifetime of this cork pen.

Whilst it may be more expensive than a pack of biros, it is a lot cheaper than nearly all fancy pens out there, (think retirement present style pens – these cost a small fortune for what is just a writing implement after all) so this cork pen is equivalent to a fountain pen but with refills that aren’t made solely out of plastic.
What is it made of?

The pen is made from a cork casing with metal aluminium parts. The refills are made of aluminium, but unfortunately do include a tiny amount of plastic on the top of the refill helping to denote the colour of the ink.

Where is it made?

The UK. The cork is sourced from Portugal.

Is it sustainable?

Cork – Cork comes from the bark of the cork oak tree. Cork is a wonderful material, it’s got loads of really useful properties, two of which are floating and being waterproof. Cork is nowadays often marketed as ‘vegan leather’ as the properties of cork make it an ethical alternative to leather. It is also naturally flame-retardant, and so is gaining in popularity for use as eco-friendly thermal insulation in buildings. If you are a fan of wine, cork is the most eco-friendly bottle stopper, as cork trees take in CO2, so the carbon footprint of corks is lower than that of plastic stoppers and aluminium caps. Portugal is the main exporter of cork; it is responsible for around half of the world’s production. Cork trees have to mature before they are harvested, once they are 25 years old, cork trees are stripped of their bark which is allowed to regrow for 9 years before the next harvesting. Cork trees live for around 300 years, so each tree can be harvested about 30 times. As the tree does not need to be cut down to harvest cork, it is considered to be a sustainable material in terms of its production, and it can be recycled. No cork is wasted during the production process, as it can all be used as components of varying qualities of the finished cork materials. Cork trees can grow in quite arid environments, so cork forests can help prevent desertification. Cork, being made from tree bark, is also naturally biodegradable. Cork trees are also lovely to look at – cork is one of my favourite materials if you haven’t guessed!

Aluminium – The rest of the pen is made of aluminium, which is the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust, making up about 8% of it. Aluminium is very chemically reactive, so is mostly found combined with many different types of minerals. It has a low density and doesn’t corrode easily (although it does react to dissolved chlorides such as sodium chloride/salt), making it a very useful material, and is often used for transportation of other materials for these reasons. Although aluminium is an abundant element, deposits of ores which can be used to make aluminium metal are not as common as you might expect. China is responsible for most aluminium production. It is very energy-intensive to create, so most smelting forges are located in areas where electricity is cheap. The energy use is so high, that in the US aluminium production uses 5% of all the US’s electricity! This is why recycling aluminium is extremely important, as recycling aluminium uses only 5% of the energy it would take to create virgin aluminium, a huge difference. It is one of the most valuable materials for recycling for this reason, and recycling rates tend to be higher than for most other materials. Most aluminium cans will be made from recycled material or contain a high percentage of recycled content. Aluminium is one of the most easily recycled materials, as it can be recycled over and over again without any downgrade in quality, unlike plastic, which is ‘downcycled’ as the quality of the material decreases each time it is recycled.

Conclusion

If the pen is mightier than the sword and can be used to change the world for the better, make sure the pen you use to wield your words isn’t made of single-use throwaway plastic!