Repurpose Your Used Pens, Markers and Other Writing Instruments

Guest post by Jacinda Gregory

TerraCycle has teamed up with leaders in the writing instrument industry such as Sharpie, Paper Mate, and EXPO to be the first to create the world’s first program to collect and reuse writing instruments. It will reduce the amounts of these products that end up in landfills around the world while raising funds for schools, charities and other non-profit originations. Each collected instrument is worth two cents and will be paid to the organization of the participant’s choice.


Participants will start by setting up collection centers called “Writing Instrument Brigades” at large corporations and schools around different areas. Once the collections have been made, each collection centre will have the opportunity to print off pre-paid shipping labels from TerraCycle’s website allowing them to be sent back, disassembled and reprocessed to make new products.

TerraCycle has also teamed up with other consumer goods manufacturers including 3M, Mars and OfficeMax, to collect and recycle their products.