As part of POC’s showcase of circular innovation on its stand D254 at BLE, we will be showing product from refillable pens for life manufacturer, Tom’s Studio.

The company started out with Tom Gyr, hand-making pens out of discarded copper, Corian, denim off cuts or resin discard from surfboards. Then about five years ago, Tom pivoted from making handmade small scale products to designing products for a bigger market that could have a larger impact. Most recently this has led to him collecting discarded pens from schools in his local area and melting them down to create pen lids for his products.

Not satisfied with just creating refillable pens designed to last a lifetime, Tom’s Studio decided to go further, closing the loop and giving single-use pens a second life. Working with UK schools to collect discarded stationery, and Brothers Make, an independent design duo specialising in repurposing plastic waste, the team has transformed used pens, DVD cases, and other plastics into beautifully unique pen lids for the Write Off range.

The lids come in five colourways, each made from a different blend of waste plastic, ensuring every single lid is unique. Just like the original Wren, the Write Off delivers a premium writing experience while ensuring fewer pens end up in landfill.

“We’ve worked out that around 60 million pens are thrown away just in schools in the UK, and then 9 billion are thrown away globally, which is just an astronomical amount of waste. So we’ve made it our mission to not only make products that are completely the antithesis of that but also can potentially take some of that waste out of the system and turn them into products for life,” says Tom Gyr, founder of Tom’s Studio.

Tom’s Studio has recently joined the Products of Change Membership Community, and BLE serves as the perfect opportunity to highlight its work and ongoing initiative to reduce waste and innovate away from the throwaway culture.

Visit the POC Booth D254 at BLE to check out Tom’s Studio’s pens.