Pencils.

• Position: LIFE - CYCLE STUDIES

Introduction

The modern pencil was once a controversial addition to the classroom. Some American schoolteachers said the 1858 invention of pencils with attached erasers would encourage student carelessness. But the pencil prevailed and is now among the world's most popular tools for writing and drawing.

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The pencil's origin lies in the late sixteenth century, when shepherds in Borrowdale, England, discovered deposits of pure graphite and used it to mark their sheep. (The Greek graphein means "to write.") One of the oldest pencils was made with Borrowdale graphite wrapped with string. Scribes would unwind the string as the graphite wore away to avoid covering their hands with carbon. The earliest eraser was a loaf of bread.

European and American manufacturers perfected wood-cased pencils by the nineteenth century, but these regions now mostly import their pencils from the world's largest pencil manufacturers in China, Indonesia, Brazil, Costa Rica, and Thailand. The U.S. domestic industry is worth $1 billion per year, but the country still imports more than 18 million pencils annually.

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Yellow paint first became the popular coating for pencils when a mine of high-grade graphite was found along the Russian-Chinese border in 1847. Manufacturers chose yellow, the color of royalty in Chinese tradition, to differentiate this optimal graphite source. Others followed suit, regardless of their graphite quality.

Closing the Loop

In many cases, pencil wood production has depleted forest reserves, contaminated waterways, and choked the air with pollutants. Herbicides are often sprayed over the forest to kill plants that compete with saplings.

Several companies have developed more responsible methods and have sought Forest Stewardship Council certification, widely considered the international standard for sustainable forestry. After approving each step of harvesting, extracting, and processing the wood, the Council has granted certification to 41 pencil manufacturers across the world.

Forest Ethics, an environmental organization that lobbies against unsustainable logging operations, has recently begun dialogues with pencil manufacturers to encourage more widespread FSC certification...