How VENT make pencils from recycled plastic

VENT for Change recycled pencils are made in its own factory in Worcestershire from recycled single use plastics including recycled CD cases. This means the plastics are re-directed away from landfill and given a longer, useful and purposeful second life. It also means no timber is felled for the purpose of pencil production. 

Mixing recycled General Purpose Polystyrene or GPPS (old CD Cases) with recycled High Impact Polystyrene or HIPS, gives the pencils the strength they require. The recycled plastics are collected and cleaned before being melted down and pelletized ready for production. To make up the body of the pencil these materials are combined with a few additional ingredients that alter the plastic make up so it is possible to sharpen them in a traditional sharpener.  The writing core is graphite mixed into the recycled plastics. It is for this reason that we cannot give them and HB or other rating, the plastic “lead” does not fit within these standardized parameters. VENT refer to their pencils as ideal general writing pencils.

These two elements are then extruded separately at high temperature and brought together to create the pencil profile before cooling. This is a continuous process creating one long length of pencil moving along the production process. This continuous length of pencil passed through a chilled water bath, once sufficiently cooled and stiffened the pencil is cut in-line to pencil length. 

The blunt pencil lengths are then put through an industrial diamond tipped sharpener before going off to print.