The document summarizes the life cycle assessment of a ballpoint pen, including the stages of raw material extraction, manufacturing, transportation, use, recycling, and disposal. It finds that ballpoint pen production causes environmental impacts through resource extraction, manufacturing waste, and plastic waste ending up in landfills. The conclusion recommends replacing the pen's plastic components with a biodegradable corn starch-based plastic that can break down in 80 days, reducing the pen's environmental footprint.
8. “A pen is a common writing instrument that
applies ink to a surface, usually paper, for
writing or drawing. Early pens such as reed
pens, quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a
small amount of ink on a nib or in a small void
or cavity which had to be periodically recharged
by dipping the tip of the pen into an inkwell..”
10. FACTS ABOUT BALLPOINTS PEN
Each second of every
day, 125 ballpoint
pens are sold
Sales
A ballpoint pen will
write approximately
50,000 words
Words
The first ballpoint
pens sold in New
York (1945) cost $12
The first
4.3 pens are used, on
average, by each
person in USA
Uses by year
The range is from
about 7-cents each,
to over $730,000!
Price ranges
Before the ballpoint
pen, RAF flyers used
feather pens
And before?
11. ANATOMY OF A BALLPOINT PEN
BRASS
Ballpoint tip
DYES, RESINS , PIGMENTS
SURFACTANTS, THICKENERS
PRESERVATIVES
INK
(PP)POLYPROPYLENE
Cap
(HDPE) HIGH DENSITY
POLYETHYLENE
Barrel
12. Content of each pen
Effects on Environment
Each pen contains 5g
of plastic, brass and
6.8 ml of crude oil
Waste
Some of pen
factories annual
waste productions
is 21,179 Tons
Raw Material
Some of Pen factory
attributes 88% of its
environmental footprint
and pollution to the
extraction/production
phase of the pen’s life
15. Manufacturing Process
Making the ink
Stamping and forming
Molding the housing
Ink filling and assembly
Final assembly, packaging, and shipping
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPcnvp8LasA&ab_channel=QualityLogoProducts
16. Life Cycle Assessment
Life cycle assessment is a technique for
assessing the environmental aspects
associated with a product over its life cycle.
18. Environmental Impact Assessment
● Ballpoint pens are usually thrown in the trash and end
up in landfills. But recycling and reusing is always an
option.
● A study shows that Americans toss 1.6 billion
disposable pens annually. These plastic pens end up in
landfills and as litter. Some of this plastic waste makes
its way to our waterways, where it breaks down into
microplastics, polluting our water and harming ocean
life.
74% recycled
material by
weight.
19. Conclusion
In our project we study the life cycle
assessment, and the environmental
impact assessment of our project
product BALLPOINT PEN.
20. LCA
When we buy something, we have keep in mind that the raw material of the product is not
harmful to the environment because, in these last decades have gone much flora and fauna due
to poaching and illegal logging. For example, if you buy fruit other than seasonal, seasonal fruit
should be stored and they defile because you need several things: fuel from the truck that
transports it, obtaining the resources used to make a store, electricity . Because believe it or not
a simple product can leave a lot of pollution. This presentation will describe the life of an
everyday product: Bic ballpoint pen
21. 1ªSTAGE: OBTANING RAW MATERIAL
• Bic pen body is made of polyethylene and the cap is
made of polypropylene.
• The load and tip are made of wolfram or tungsten, a rare
metal that costs 38,529.927 US dollars / tone.
• The ink is composed of hydrochloric acid tannic, gallic
and diluted with phenol (iron sulfate) and a blue tint, all
these components are in tiny amounts that a mixture in
large quantities can become deadly for the living beings
22. 2ªSTAGE: MANUFACTURING
• The first step is make the body, that it make polyethylene factory in molds, the same process
with the cap but with liquid polypropylene.
• After you do the tip cutting with precise machine, the ball tip must to have a diameter of 1 mm,
at
• the same time the ink’s container and the ink are doing, later the ink is injected then it
centrifuged
• to remove any air bubble. Next assembled everything an d do a test of quality
• Finally you do the details as the name of trade.
23. 3ªSTAGE: TRANSPORTING TO A HOUSE
OR A
BUSSINES
• In Spain, the Bic’s Factory of pen is in
Tarragona, from there is distributed the pen for
many stores an the stores sell to the business
and the business sell our. It do many pollution
when is transporting.
24. 4ªSTAGE: USE Y REUSE
• When we have the pen it has the ability to do a
line of 4km, you can recharge it, if is possible.
When the pen not wok is because there are a air
bubble or because the tip is break
25. • All of the remains are recyclable, normally
is use to do an other pen but it isn´t
always. Normally when it do a new pen
the only work that do is to inject ink.
5ªSTAGE: RECICLE
26. 6ªSTAGE: DISPOSAL IN A
LANDFILL OR
BURNING
• There are occasions that the user doesn´t
recycle the pen and it dispose of in the
equivocate container. Hardly never the pen
burn
27. Environmental Impact Assesment
• Every industry has a bad impact on environment.
• We use underground water & it causes water crisis.
• Manufacturing plant pollute air, soil, water.
• It emit Carbone di oxide that increase temperature.
28. Conclusion and Solutions
• The goal is to develop a Bic-style writing instrument that, during its entire
useful lifespan, produces far less harmful emissions.
• This document details the product's enhancements, the rationale behind
the objectives selected, and the resulting reduction in environmental
effect.
• Open LCA assessed ethanol emissions using ethene and tungsten
emissions using steel owing to data restrictions. Because glass
containers are included in the shipping containers that hold the pens,
they are not the primary focus of our investigation.
29. I propose a replacement cap, body, and refills made of the
following materials. Developed from modified corn starch as
well as other renewable resources, Plastarch Material (PSM) is
a biodegradable polymer plastic featuring stiffness, hardness,
and elasticity. Features such as these, as well as being non-
toxic, resistant to extreme temperatures, and so on, are
standard. In addition, the production method generates zero
wastewater, zero emissions, and zero trash. PSM trash may
be broken down into water, energy, and biological carbon in as
little as 80 days, making it a truly biodegradable material.
Recommendations
30. I propose a replacement cap, body, and refills made of the
following materials. Developed from modified corn starch as
well as other renewable resources, Plastarch Material (PSM) is
a biodegradable polymer plastic featuring stiffness, hardness,
and elasticity. Features such as these, as well as being non-
toxic, resistant to extreme temperatures, and so on, are
standard. In addition, the production method generates zero
wastewater, zero emissions, and zero trash. PSM trash may
be broken down into water, energy, and biological carbon in as
little as 80 days, making it a truly biodegradable material.
Recommendations
