Wow! Trees Rule

Found this amazing information from Arbor Day Foundation. Who would have believed this. Incredible. Now that we can measure the value of trees...or one tree, let's treasure them as never before:

The Arbor Day Foundation calculated a tree's exact price: "Over the course of 50 years, a single tree can generate $31,250 of oxygen, provide $62,000 worth of air pollution control, recycle $37,500 worth of water, and control $31,500 worth of soil erosion."

That comes to about $162,250 total. That's $3,245 per year. In return for planting just one tree!

The Vacation is Over

After more than a year...it is time to post again on BigScream. So many of you have commented that you missed it, so I will try to be more involved here.

The year has been busy, and the good news is the O'BON continues to grow. We have just opened South Africa...and this has all kinds of opportunities for O'BON. So many visitors and South Africans are very away of the environment. We have early reports that the kids in schools are really in love with O'BON pencils.

The big news for O'BON fans is that we are about to launch a biodegradable pen. This is really exciting for us as this pen is a standout. Designed for the 21st century, this pen is sleek and fits in the hand easily. Moreover, the colors are unique and attention-getting. But, the best part is that when you want to throw it away, just take out the refill and toss it. It completely biodegrades to CO2 and water...perfect.

Will post more tomorrow.

EcoBON

For those interested in following the developments of O'BON...here is some news. O'BON will soon manufacture PLA pens. What is PLA? PolyLaticAcid. This is the new plastic-like material which is 100% biodegradable. In fact, it is so benign to the environment that PLA biodegrades into carbon dioxide and water. This is good news as O'BON will be one of the first brand names to produce a pen using this material. We have decided not to call this PLA or polylaticacid as it is too technical and challenging. We will use our own name: Ecobon.

Before the end of the month I will post a graphic of our new pen. We hope you like it. With this addition to our family, O'BON will become a real player in both the office and school stationery business.

SugarCane Notebooks

O'BON produces the SugarCane (Bagasse) Notebooks. We receive a lot of comments about the design ...the fruit series consisting of great graphics of strawberries, kiwis, apples and oranges are so popular that people forget about the paper inside. Well, if you have doubt, go here to read an independent review of the paper. When pen ink meets paper...oh, there's the rub. O'BON SugarCane notebooks do great. Enjoy.

Orangutan

I just love Orangutan. They are so sensitive and just lovely animals. We must save them by saving their habitat. Take a look at this cute video here.

Deforestation

http://ow.ly/I3zE to see interesting video on deforestation in Indonesia. Indonesia once had a lot of forest, but in the rush for development they have become the 3rd largest emitter of Green House gases after the US and China.. Amazing...late a look

O'BONanza and Trees

Save trees by using O'BON...recycled pencils from newspaper and notebooks from Sugarcane paper. Buy now and you get a tree planted. Great Holiday gifts for kids. Check out the package at http://youtube.com/obonusa.

A Pencil That Doesn't Break...WOW!

Many pencil users are in disbelief about O'BON claiming that our pencils don't break. Now, we are not saying that they never break, but it is damn hard to break the lead in an O'BON pencil. We ask you to do the SMASH test.
The SMASH test involves taking a sharpened O'BON pencil and a wood pencil in one hand. Make sure they are sharpened. Then smash both the pencils on the edge of a table. Don't hit the point, but the body of the pencil. Smash it repeatedly - hard. I mean hard. Now wiggle the point. Still intact, probably both pencils seem to be ok. Now sharpen them.
Test Results:
The O'BON pencil lead is not cracked and works fine. The other pencil lead is cracked and the point wiggles and easily come out when pulled.

How is this possible?
Many think that the O'BON doesn't break because it is cushioned by the newspaper. This is not the correct answer. The O'BON pencil is made by wrapping old newspaper 36 times around the graphite. The graphite is sealed in - airtight. There is no air gap inside, so when the pencil is smashed on the table or drops on the floor, there is no vibration inside the barrel. Wood pencils are made with two slates of wood, grooved for the lead and glued together. There is always an air gap - an air grap allows vibration inside the pencil against the fragile graphite. So, snap, crackle, pop!
Another reason why we claim our pencils are "the world's greatest pencil."

Do Trees Feel Pain?

I grew up on a 500 acre Virginia farm. So, to heat our log cabin, my brother and I would spend most of the fall weekends cutting wood for our 2 fireplaces and one cook stove. It was fairly arduous work, and we spent a lot of time with chainsaws, two man saw and axes in our hands. My brother thought it was quite funny to raise the specter of trees feeling pain. He would mimic their cry of pain as we felled an old oak. The howl he made was quite chilling, and because it bothered me (I thought it could be true, “Trees feel pain,”) Being only 10 years old when he discovered my uneasy with his chilling scream, he never let it drop. While most weekend lumberjacks would just yell “Timber,” my bro loved to let out his blood curdling, deep throated, vampire-like scream, “Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.” His pain sound was unique to each tree and although it didn’t drive me home in tears; it almost did.
By the time I took biology in school and learned about nervous systems, it was too late for me to have any logical, scientific basis for the pain denial argument. I had chosen my answer to this question as my brother’s scream was too real, too embedded. Luckily for me, I didn’t hear the carrots scream when I forked them or the broccoli didn’t gasp their last when I chopped and mashed them up with my molars. No, the hypothetical question about trees and pain was only reserved for trees and didn’t transfer to other plants, shrubs, vegetables and flowers.
Now as an adult, I have a different take on this question about our trees. Although I can intellectual accept that a particular tree doesn’t feel pain when it is chopped down, I submit everything else surrounding this tree does feel the pain. Their pain is real. The orangutan, the tiger, the birds, the chipmunk, the snakes, spiders, moles, beetles…..the list goes on, all feel the pain. They don’t just get a bloody nose or a backache; they die. The death isn’t to one animal, one plant, one fungus or one bacteria…the death now results in massive extinction. Malaysia has lost almost all of the world’s oldest rainforest in the 30 years. Since the mid 70s, over 60% of Malaysia was covered with rainforest. It is now less than 20% and dwindling fast. The thousands of species wiped out which we will never find, never know about. The cure for cancer could have been in those wiped our rainforest. But it is not just Malaysia or the Tropics that has suffered so much. Take America, in less than 400 years we have wiped out our forests…with a bare 4% left. Most of these remaining forests are in our National and State Parks (of which, we still allow logging).
The pain of rainforest and other forest destruction is real. Listen to it, “owwwwwwww.” Global warming is a direct result of this painful destruction of our forest. Even though the poor and now pitiful Polar Bear, couldn’t care less about a tree and probably never has even seen one, now starves to death and near extinction looking for a solid sheet of ice to rest. Often these giant, beautiful creatures drown from their exhaustive search for solid ice….a clear painful scream we can all hear and feel. Their painful death is directly attributed to the destruction of our forest. As you watch these majestic creatures struggle to climb a tipsy piece of ice, you can hear their unmistakable scream of a panic death.
So, I thank my brother for teaching me a valuable life lesson. Trees do feel pain, and we can hear and feel pain easily if we listen. The scream can be heard in the Antarctica, Brazil, Vietnam and America. It can be heard loudly in countries where we don’t regulate logging, but it can be heard also in countries that aren’t actively restoring what has been killed.

How do we make our pencil?

Many have written to ask how we make our pencils. The process of making a recycled newspaper pencil is relatively easy if you happen to have the secret formula, exclusive machines, 40 staff, a large building and a commitment to excellence. It is really simple to make a cheap, toxic and crappy recycled newspaper pencil. There are plenty of imitations and "fly by night" factories doing this right now. Even though they try, no one comes close to the O'BON recycled newspaper pencil. Enough...let's describe the process.

It all starts with the newspaper. The used newspaper has to be cleaned and pressed out so that each paper, each sheet is absolutely flat. There can be no crinkles and lines as well as no chewing gum. Crumbled paper won't do. In short, the used newspaper has to be clean and flat. Once our team goes through each sheet for cleanliness, the paper is laid flat and stacked. Then a two ton flat concrete block is lowered to press the paper flat. The weight stays for a least a week.

Once the old newspaper is flatten, we cut it to the precise length of a pencil. One sheet of standard newspaper is cut into six sheets, thus six pencils can be made from one sheet of newspaper. The length is long enough for 70 revolutions (wrap around the graphite. We often add an additional small length of recycled plain paper for pencil we plan to paint.

Once the paper is cut and stacked, the pile of newspaper heads to another room to be wrapped and glued. First a half inch fold is made at the top of the paper and the graphite with a small amount of non-toxic, water based glue is added. These are stacked into groups of one thousand. These are carried over to the nearby first machine which thread the graphite filled newsprint into a machine that wrap the pencil. The key to this process is that a small amount of water based glue is dripped onto the newspaper as the machine wraps the pencil tight. So, with each revolution of the newspaper some glue is added. This gives the O'BON pencil a tight, solid, firm feel as the glue hardens.

The hardening of the O'BON pencil involves two steps. First we place the pencils on racks so they can air dry. They will sit on this rack for one to two days. After air drying, the pencils are taken to a big machine where they are heated to 60 degrees Celsius (that's hot). They will be hot air dried in this machine for four hours. This process hardens the glue so the pencil's characteristics are solid and firm.

Out of the heater, the pencil looks rough. It has rough edges and the ends are ragged. So, we sand them smooth and cut off the ends. The machines that sand the pencils and make the O'BON pencil smooth are quiet, and the newspaper dust is collected from the sanding basket and blown into large water vats. Here the newspaper dust turn into a harmless sludge which is filtered. We put the dried remains on our vegetable garden and as mulch around our surrounding trees.

Now the smooth, firm pencil is ready to be painted. We have two systems for this. We have machines that print on our world famous "art." We make high quality film that prints on the pencil our Tiger, Leopard, Elephant, Bear and Parrot. This is how we get our high quality print on the pencil. The other system is where the pencil is painted a single color. The pencils are forced through a small box filled with the paint. As the pencil comes through the box, the excess paint is scraped off with flexible plastic rings. The pencil then rests on a long conveyor belt and the fine layer of paint is given time to dry as it circles on the belt. Then it is forced through the paint box again. A total of at least ten circles and paint layers for each pencil results in an ultra smooth painted surface.

After the paint is applied, the ends are sanded creating a small inverted indentation. The pencils are put upside down into a holder. There will be a hundred pencils in each holder. The holder is lowered (usually less than one inch) into a big vat of paint. Because of the indentation on the end, the dip into the paint results in a smooth and stunningly beautiful "cap." It isn't a cap, but it sure looks like it.

Once dried from the dip, the O'BON pencil is ready to be gently nestled into it's box.

Slide Show...Enjoy!

Flickr and O'BON

O'BON USA has created a visual display of each O'BON product. Help yourself and enjoy the wonder of these products. Get it here.

Link with us!

                                    
Eco-Friendly Stationery                                
<a href="http://www.myobon.com/"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk92/suppimdara/ani6.gif" /></a>                                        

Eco-Friendly Stationery
<a href="http://www.myobon.com/"><img src="http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk92/suppimdara/ani5.gif" /></a>

LINK TO US!
1) Copy the code from the boxes below the image (or images)
2) Then, go onto your website/blog and paste it.
3) The flash image should appear on your website!
4) Need help? Drop me a comment.

If you want us to link with you please send me your link or website!

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.

go green!: newspaper pencils

go green!: newspaper pencils

Sugarcane Paper Notebook (A Must Have)

We are so excited about our new range of A5 and A6 sugarcane paper notebooks.  The paper is called bagasse and it comes from the pulp of the sugarcane plant.  Once the juice is extracted, we can make nice clean white paper without destroying trees.  Cool!  What makes these notebooks so enjoyable and a must item to purchase is the hard cover...Take a look.  We have 15 designs. Here is one...recognize the bird?
We will have them for sale soon here.