BHOPAL: To promote a greener tomorrow, Vijnana Bharti, MP is starting a drive of collecting dumped ball point pens under the guidance of Lakshmi Menon, who started a successful campaign in Kerala, #PenDrive. Madhya Pradesh will be the second state after Kerala to adopt this campaign of collecting ball point pens and recycling them to make other products.
The launch of the campaign in MP was organised at MPCST. Menon, a Kerala-based artist and owner of a social enterprise, said the initiative had been a huge success in Kerala. “Large numbers of pens are produced throughout the country, which are enough to encircle the earth 348 times. So imagine the number of pens we have on our planet. The basic campaign is to promote the use of ink pens which are more environment friendly and do not harm us. For collection of pens we will be installing cardboard boxes in schools and colleges. Anyone using non recyclable pens can throw it in the box, which will be recycled. We will circulate making the pen usable after refilling and those pens which cannot be reused will be recycled into some other item,” she said.
MSPCT director general CK Patil was also present at the inaugural event along with VK Sethi, JP Shukla, etc.
ABOUT LAKSHMI MENON
Lakshmi Menon is a renowned artist from Kerala and also the owner of social enterprise PURE Living which up-cycles, recycles and economises products for reuse. She also developed a paper pen which when planted after use grows into a plant. This plantable pen has seed at the rear end which when planted, grows. She said she couldn’t completely escape from plastic when it came to pens as the refill was of plastic even in her plantable paper pen. “My pen is also not the complete solution; it is basically to promote more trees. I am here to promote the use of ink pen like the good old days we had. Also, it is propagated that ink pens are difficult to use, which is wrong. Avoiding ball pens can save us from a lot of plastic.
