Business tips: Properly recycle your old pens, markers, and other writing utensils

By Jess Blackwell 

Whether you own a restaurant or a law firm, chances are you have plastic pens, markers, and similar writing utensils in the drawers of your store or office. 

Unfortunately, most of these items were intended to be single-use and are not refillable, nor are they typically recyclable through mainstream government-run recycling programs. This means that most of these single-use items end up in the garbage.

The good news, however, is that Terracycle has partnered with Staples to provide Canadians with a free, convenient means of keeping these old writing utensils out of our landfills. 

How does it work? Basically, all you need to do is save up your old plastic pens, markers, mechanical pencils, and highlighters, and then drop them off at a participating Staples store near you. 

If you go to the Terracycle page here, you can enter your postal code to find the nearest st
ore.

We have also partnered with Staples to offer this recycling program at our triennial REmarket event, so feel free to save up your eligible office supplies and bring them down to our next REmarket!

And, circling back to our previous tip about using what you already have, just be sure to use up the pens, pencils, and highlighters you already have before dropping them off to be recycled!

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​*This post is based on content originally published at lumida.ca/blog.