Shaping a Greener Future

Students collect used plastic pens as part of the Pen Pals movement, which is developing ways to reuse the pens instead of sending them to landfills. (Photograph courtesy Prakshal Mehta)

When Prakshal Mehta was invited to visit the United States in 2023 as part of a multi-country group looking at ways to combat climate change, he had already spent a decade-and-a-half creating awareness about environmental protection and sustainability in India.

The three-week International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), the U.S. Department of State’s premier professional exchange program, with around 60 participants from the Asian and Pacific regions, visited four U.S. cities to learn and share ideas about public and private initiatives on climate change. Mehta says the visit was of great value as it allowed him to exchange ideas with fellow participants and learn from what was being done in America.

“I realized that in the U.S., everyone from government agencies to private companies is open to working for solutions and they have the resources to do it,” he says. “I really appreciated that willingness when I was invited to the White House to meet with a presidential team leading the Net Zero strategy. They said, ‘We lead by example’.” The strategy’s aim is a net-zero American economy by 2050—one that creates no more greenhouse gasses than what is being removed from the atmosphere by any remediation method.

“If they do this,” says Mehta, “it creates an example for companies and governments around the world.”

Environmental programs

Mehta has already been working toward this goal in India. In 2009, he and a partner created a social enterprise called World Around You (WAY), in Ahmedabad. WAY provides educational programs on environmental sustainability for 5th to 7th grade students at schools across Gujarat. It also provides communications services on environmental issues for government agencies, businesses and other organizations.

The programs with school students employ a hands-on approach. For instance, some participants are asked to carry out a survey of water leaks in their schools and homes. They are then urged to press the school and local officials to repair the leaks to save clean water. The exercise empowers them to demand protections for their natural environment.

In 2017, Mehta created another company, Hara Pitara (meaning “green treasure box”), to market sustainable consumer products. Made mainly from bamboo or paper, the products include pens, stationery, music instruments, wireless chargers and keyboards, and computer mice. The aim of the company, says Mehta, is “to make sustainable products more affordable and acceptable to ordinary people.”

At first, he says, people didn’t take their products seriously. But now “we are seeing a massive difference in people’s attitudes—a mass adoption of these products.”

Pen pals

Mindless and wasteful consumption has long been a pet peeve of Mehta, which is why he created a movement he dubbed Pen Pals. Based on data on pen sales and other information, Mehta estimates that across the world, billions of cheap plastic pens are thrown out each year. These end up in landfills and some of this plastic waste makes its way to waterways, where it breaks down into microplastics, polluting water and harming ocean life.

Through the Pen Pals movement, students are encouraged to collect used plastic pens. The first collection attempt was at a girls’ government school in 2013. “They accepted the challenge, and after three to four months, they called us to come pick up what they had collected,” says Mehta. “I went there by bike, thinking they would hand over a pack of used pens. But instead, when I arrived, there was a huge pile of old pens on the floor weighing 500 kilograms!”

But collection alone does not solve the problem because recyclers refuse to take the plastic pens. As they are typically composed of five to six types of plastic, recycling them is difficult, says Mehta. So, the team has been working on developing uses for the empty objects and has already found ways to decorate furniture with them.

The real solution, he says, is cutting way down on the production and sale of disposable pens, which are produced in far greater numbers than what is actually needed. “We work with schools to encourage students to buy refills. They have adopted a slogan, ‘I choose refills, not landfills,’” says Mehta, adding his dream is a “litter-free, literate world.”

“The pen represents wisdom,” he says. “We expect anyone who is holding a pen to be responsible and help dispose of them responsibly.”

Burton Bollag is a freelance journalist living in Washington, D.C.

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