May-23-2012, Wednesday:
It may seem weird to read this news. But it is true. Our national capital region is devoid of ballpoint pen refills unlike other parts of India. Due to change in lifestyle, there is significant change in consumer behavior.
The Citizen journalist had to travel long ways as he was unaware of the fact that Ballpoint pen refills are not sold in any of the stationary shops. "Aap kabhi bhi aa sakte hein. Mujhe kuch problem nehin." ("You can come anytime. I have no issues."), sarcastically replied one shop keeper when the citizen jounalist asked to revisit the shop for 5 refills. The shop keeper added further, "Mein nehin launga refill. Koi leta hi nehin. Ek refill char rupaiya aur pen ka daam paanch rupaiya... kuch farak hi nehin" ("I won't get refills. One refill costs four rupees and a pen costs five rupees. There is (virtually) no difference in price.."). True, people in Delhi NCR are preferring to purchase pen nowadays. It has become a trend. A student can purchase 10 Reynolds pen, but not one Reynolds pen and nine Reynolds refills.
Why this article? Is it really a concern to spend one or two rupees extra to get a pen in stead of a refill? No, absolutely not. It is NOT money but environment pollution that is the real concern. Think about the volume of plastic wastages Delhi NCR can produce over a period of time.
Let us look at the stats below. We would like to know how much additional waste can be created from Delhi NCR given the current usage pattern. We will consider only schools. We assume that:
- A student needs 2 refills per month
- A school has an average number of 200 students
- Life of a pen is 1 year i.e. a student can use the same pen for one year
- There are around 2000 schools in Delhi NCR
Monthly usage
| Purchase pens only | Purchase a pen and next purchase is refill | Additional bodies used (monthly) |
| One student | 2 refills + 2 bodies | 2 refills + 1 body | 1 |
| Per School | 400 refills + 400 bodies | 400 refills + 200 bodies | 200 |
Per Delhi NCR
(considering schools only) | 800000 refills + 800000 bodies | 800000 refills + 400000 bodies | 400000 |
Yearly usage
| Purchase pens only | Purchase a pen and next purchase is refill | Additional bodies used (yearly) |
| One student | 24 refills + 24 bodies | 24 refills + 1 body | 23 |
| Per School | 4800 refills + 4800 bodies | 4800 refills + 200 bodies | 4600 |
Per Delhi NCR
(considering schools only) | 9600000 refills + 9600000 bodies | 9600000 refills + 400000 bodies | 9200000 |
From above tables it is clear that school going students alone can produce extra volumes (waste) of 4 lakh units per month and 92 lakh units per year. Is it not staggeringly high in number? It costs to environment. Note that we have not considered offices, colleges and universities in our calculation.
Being national capital of India, it is imperative that majority of people here are educated and have a higher disposable income. Does higher spending capacity gives us the liberty to seek our luxury at the cost of environment? No, probably not. We watch NDTV's Greenathon and often debate for environment protection. But we do not practice here.
There are probably two reasons for this: 1) We insisted for new pens rather than a new refill which eventually became a trend. 2) A ball point pen may be giving a higher profit margin than its refill, so merchants started creating scarcity of refills and convinced the customers that it is better to go for pens than refills as there is not much difference in price of a pen and its refill. Slowly it has become a practice by customers over a period of time to ask for a pen only.
Whatever it is, we cannot seek luxury at the expenses of environment. Next time you go for a new pen ask for a refill for your pen, insist the shop owner that you require refills. Let us be sensible and create awareness on this. You can even talk to your friends and colleagues, acquaintances, and share this post with them. Only we as customers can bring a change to this ill trend and protect our environment.
