How to Recycle Pencil Shavings

By heather at 11:49 pm on Monday, April 16, 2007

I came across this post on How Can I Recycle This?

“Last week, I wrote a bit of a rant about how much I hate it when pencil leads are broken (HATE) and asked what I could do with the formerly-useful pencils. But I didn’t think about the resultant sharpenings. If the pencil is wood, I guess they can be composted - right? But what about previously-foam-cup pencils that can’t be composted? I know it seems a really small thing and almost isn’t worth caring about, but any suggestions?”

As an illustrator, I create an incredible amount of pencil shaving waste! I even have a ‘graveyard’ of pencil stubs too short to comfortably use anymore but am too sentimental about to actually throw away. Happily I don’t need to toss the pencils shavings in the trash anymore, as I’ve discovered some great ways to keep shavings out of landfils :

Reuse

• Mulch : wood pencil shavings make great mulch in the garden

Reduce
• Use graphite sticks instead of pencils (completely reducing the shaving waste)
• Use solid graphite pencils (completely reducing the shaving waste)
• Use refillable pencils and just purchase new leads (be sure to purchase those packaged in recyclable & recycled packaging)

Recycle
• wood pencil shavings can be composted
• wood pencil shavings can be used as kindling in fireplaces

Filed under: green design, business of illustration

4 Comments »

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Comment by Kristin

April 20, 2007 @ 8:54 am

I didn’t realize that they made graphite sticks until I read your post, which was quite interesting by the way. Today I happened upon this article which I thought might interest you. It’s about an artist who makes graphite sculptures that you can actually draw with:

http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/2007/04/agelio_batle_gr.php

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Comment by monica morrison

October 30, 2008 @ 11:17 am

My math teacher and I thought about how to recyle pencil shavings and how we would go about making more pencils from them.

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Comment by monica morrison

October 30, 2008 @ 11:18 am

And WE WILL FIGURE IT OUT! BAWW!

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Comment by fanuel amare

April 15, 2010 @ 9:39 am

woww this is lame for real man comee on

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