Every year when we go back to school shopping I buy less and less ‘stuff’. We’ve realized over the years how much of these supplies either go unused or get wasted just because we get caught up in the sales and the frenzy of back to school shopping. Do we really need to buy new stuff every year and throw out all the ones from last year just because we’ve been conditioned that kids ought to go to school every year with all new ‘stuff’? All these waste has bothered me and my girls over the years and this year we have been very conservative with our shopping. We are either re-using things from last year or making smarter buys this year to ensure that what we buy will be put to good use rather than ending up in the landfill.

That’s why we were glad to see that some products have made an effort to make themselves more friendly to the environment. Paper Mate, for instance, just launched a new line of eco-friendly writing utensils which include biodegradable pens and mechanical pencils. My daughters love mechanical pencils and we usually buy a huge box of them during this time. Most of them get used, but it just bothers me that the spent cartridges are usually thrown away to the trash. Not to mention all the pens that we buy that usually end up drying out before they can be used then also tossing them into the trash.


Plant-A-Pen Challenge was conceived by Mom Central and Paper Mate to show kids how products that they use daily and probably take for granted, impacts the environment. My youngest daughter is very curious how this experiment will go. The challenge is to plant the biodegradable components of the Paper Mate pen in your backyard and see how long it will take for the Paper Mate pen to break down and biodegrade back into the soil. Now we parents know that this won’t happen over night, but it will be a test of patience for our kids especially the younger ones. My daughter has already been out in the garden a couple of times to check on the pen this week and I keep telling her it will probably be a while until anything starts to happen.

We’ll try to post more photos of the the Plant-A-Pen Challenge as changes occur.

 
 
“I wrote this review while participating in a blog campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Paper Mate and received a sample to facilitate my candid review. Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.”