Eco-Friendly Office Paper: It's new from O'BON!

We have announced that O'BON is using SugarCane Paper in all our notebooks. This may need some explanation to all our O'BON fans. Why SugarCane Paper? First, when we looked at recycled paper, we were not too impressed with most of it. For example, recycled paper tends to either be brownish and with "threads" embedded. When we looked carefully at the "whiter" paper, we discovered that of this type recycled paper only had a 40% recycled content. This was just too low for us.
As we acknowledge that our SugarCane paper is not recycled paper, it is 86% sugarcane. This leaves a small percentage of actual wood in our paper. Furthermore, given the nature of sugarcane, it is so much easier to make sugarcane paper than wood paper or recycled paper. Many of you know that the paper industry collectively is the 3rd biggest pollution on our planet. So, O'BON really wanted to look for "something different." We think the solution to the paper pollution large footprints is looking at alternatives to the wood paper industry. So much energy and pollution is caused by this business, we need desperately to find solutions.
The wood paper industry destroys huge tracks of forest and rainforest. Moreover, the amount of energy to grind it down to pulp is fantastic. It made sense to us to look at sugarcane as an alternative.
Sugarcane is a plant that grows in the tropics and semi-tropics. It grows quickly in clumps. It does not require heavy doses of fertizers to make it grow quickly. It is more like a weed. It just grows and grows. Two or three "harvests" can be taken each year from this fast growing plant.
The sugarcane is very fiborous and sweet juice is extracted easily with a simple press. Once the juice is extracted, it is usually thrown away. So, why not put it on a truck or ship and take it to a paper mill?  Here, the already stripped plant can be made into the pulp necessary to make our sugarcane paper. No big saws or gigantic grinders are necessary for sugarcane pulp paper.

Join us in embracing this type of paper for your office or school printing needs. We call our sugarcane paper: L'Papier d'eco.  This paper comes in 80 grams with 500 sheets in one packet. Look for this soon at eco-friendly shops and web outlets.

This is a nice photo of our coloured pencils.   It is on a great Australian eco-friendly web site
at www.eco-essentials.com.au.  Check them out
This site describes O'BON pencil as:

O'BON Wildlife Colour Pencils(12)

Our Price: $8.50
Material: made from recycled newspaper

O'BON create products that protect our world and are exciting to use!
Each pencil is made from old newspaper using a patented roll-on method that ensures the lead in the pencil does not break easily.
Its quality is proven to last two to three times longer than ordinary wooden pencils. Manufacturer is ISO 9001 certified.
O'BON pencils are completely non-toxic, and carry an European EN-71 certification. They even use a non-toxic, water based glue, which is the safest and best alternative for products used by children.
These pencils are water resistant, easily sharpened and splinter free
No forest was destroyed to create O'BON pencil!

An Australian site has started selling our pencils....www.ecobabe.com.au.  Actually O'BON has a lot of websites discussing, selling, studying, analyzing, recommending O'BON in Australia.  We are just delighted.  We will show you some...this one....www.ecobabe.com.au

Product Information
Gone are the days when pencils came in bland colours, broke constantly and consumed valuable environmental resources. O'BON pencils are made from old newspaper, and manufactured in a variety of hip designs and colours.

We have lovely 2B lead pencils that are just soft enough to write smoothly and the funky coloured pencils where each colour matches the skin, fur or shell of one of the featured animals. The colours are rich, smooth and not waxy - key qualities of a superior pencil. These pencils make great gifts and will inspire kids to draw and colour.

Available as:
2 pack of 2B lead pencils $2.75
10 pack of 2B lead pencils $7.50
12 pack of coloured pencils $10.95


O'BON Pencils are

* quality, recycled newspaper pencils
* non-toxic, meets European Standards (EN-71)
* 100% environmentally friendly and saves our forest
* made from recycled newspaper using patented 'Rolled On' method
* water resistant and last 2-3 times longer than ordinary wood pencils
* well protected so that the lead doesn't break easily
* easily sharpened and splinter free

Pencil me In.....

www.ozolife.com has a nice picture of an O'BON pencil and an endorsement.  Thank you, we like your eco friendly site, lots of info.



Pencil Me In
O'Bon Pencils and Notebooks

How do you know you're officially an adult? When the smell of new folders and crowded school supply aisles stop evoking a bittersweet thrill. But here's something worth stuffing in the millennial generation's backpacks: woodless pencils from SF-based company O'Bon, which bypass the whole deforestation thing by wrapping the pencils' graphite 36 times in used newspaper. And the best way to embarrass text-happy kids who are too cool for school? Leave 'em an unabashadly mushy lunchbox note on bagasse paper (sugarcane pulp after it's been juiced) from an O'Bon notebook.


Available online at myobon.com.

School Down The Lane

The blog SCHOOLDOWNTHELANE has a comment up about O'BON pencils.  As more people learn about us, the endorsement come.  We especially like beating out the much like Black Warrior pencil...but that is a tree pencils.  But, O'BON beats it hands down.  Here are the comments from schooldownthe lane.

You might have noticed that I do not have pencils anywhere on our list of purchased products. There is a reason for that. In the past I have been a proponent of Mirado Black Warrior pencils. They are, in my humble opinion, the best pencil you can buy at the mega mart and I still love them. However (there is always an however isn’t there) last winter I bought K some O’BON pencils for her Christmas stocking and we are now thoroughly hooked. These are seriously the best pencils ever! They don’t break inside so when you sharpen them the lead falls out and you have to sharpen them again. They sharpen without loosing a ton of length. They feel better in your hand then wooden pencils and the dogs won’t even chew them since they are made of paper. That last bit is very important in this house as I have list more pencils to the dogs then anything else. The O’BON pencils are not cheap, but totally worth it if you can swing it. The three packages I bought last winter are hardly broken into since a pencil lasts so long and the art pencils are almost as long as when we got them despite being used constantly. The only thing is you have to buy erasers for them since they don’t have any. Not a big deal since the ones on the wooden pencils usually don’t work for squat anyway in my experience (possible exception being the erasers on the Black Warriors).

And yes, I think a lot about pencils.