START WRITING WITH A PENCIL PLANT

(The Quiver) : Sprout world has taken up such an innovative and unique concept and acted on the idea of eco-friendly pencils. The company is also making writing implements and business cards, when they are planted in soil, they grow into herbs, vegetables or flowers. The company aims to inspire people to think more about where products come from and what happens when they’re no longer useful.

The company, which launched in 2014, says that sales are increasing but the concept of a plantable pencil was developed in 2012 by three students at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology. Sprout purchased the idea two years later.

“We as individuals know we cannot save the planet, but we can do things little by little, we can take small steps in our everyday life,” Michael Stausholm, Sprout’s chief executive

“That’s what people have in mind when they buy a Sprout pencil — you can feel you can make a difference by buying something you don’t have to throw out afterward, but plant it instead to give it a new life,” Stausholm added.

Instead of an eraser, sprout pencils have seeds capsules on one end. The capsule contains one of several varieties of plants — herbs like basil or rosemary, flowers like marigolds, vegetables like green peppers, and so on. “Once the writing end of the pencil is all used up, you just stick the capsule end in some soil and water regularly. The seed should germinate within 1 to 3 weeks”, the company said.

Individuals can also buy the pencils on Sprout’s site, in Whole Foods Supermarkets and on Amazon, where customers have given the pencils a near-perfect rating. The wood used to make Sprout pencils in Europe comes from tree farms certified by the non-profit Forest Stewardship Council. In the U.S., where Stausholm said it’s harder to find FSC-certified forests, the company buys wood from farms verified by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification, a Swiss non-profit that functions similarly to the FSC but carries less prestige.

The roughly 15 billion wooden pencils produced worldwide each year use about 60,000 trees according to sustainable goods site Pristine Planet.

More manufacturing of these kind of pencils across the whole World can help in restoring our green planet. Thus, gearing up afforestation if larger plants seeds could germinate through such purposes.