Team 1 23.10.

2020
Paula Autio Product Sustainability
Linda Loukamo AAN-C2007
Joakim Laine Professor: Elina Kähkönen
Aslanbek Kazhiyakhmetov Product: Ballpoint pen
Lauri Aho
Amélie Bigeard

Life Cycle Comparison Report on a Ballpoint Pen

Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Life Cycles of Actual Product and Our Improved Version in Comparison
3. Conclusion
4. Sources & References

1. Introduction

The product we are assessing is a cheap bic pen - the type you would receive for free at an
event – and our goal is to create a greener version of it. By greener, we mean a version that
significantly cuts back emissions for the total lifecycle of the pen. We set out to find the most
reliable, affordable, and executable solution. Our basic assumption are that the pen will be
used in Finland and that they are common cheap pens used mainly for writing. In this report
we’ll show which improvements have been made in the product, why these targets for the
improvement were chosen, and how much lower an impact is gained by the improvements.

The functional unit for a bic pen is defined to be its lifetime. A bic pen can write a line up to
1,92km in length (~1mm in width) (​1​) in a best case scenario, however we chose the
functional unit of a lifetime instead of meters written or drawn, as we estimated it to be likely
that the pen is lost or the ink dries out before its computational maximum amount of text is
reached. Average lifetime is thus estimated to be shorter than it would be in the ideal case
scenario.

2. Life Cycles of Actual Product and Our Improved Version in Comparison

The work starts with identifying the parts of the lifecycle that have the biggest impacts.
Furthermore, we looked into the most significant effects of each part of the life cycle
separately. System limitations are defined in each sub part. The used assessment method is
BEES+, and the assessed categories are eutrophication, global warming potential, water
intake, ecotoxicity and acidification. In all of these categories, the most important impact is
the plastic parts, as it can be seen from figure 2. Plastic forms the majority of the pen. Glass
containers are also identified as a significant source of pollution, but as they are part of the
transport containers the pens are shipped in, it is not a meaningful focus of our study as it
has nothing to do with the product composition.
Figure 1: Biggest contributors to life cycle emissions of the pen.

2.1 Raw Materials and Their Preparation

The materials of the ballpoint pen are 1.35g of polypropylene, 3.4g of polystyrene, 0.2g of
ethanol as the main ink component, 0.05g of tungsten carbide (tungsten 0.047g and carbon
0.003g) (​3​) and 0.2g of brass (assumed to be 35% zinc, 65% copper translating to 0.13g of
copper and 0.07g of zinc. The zinc ratio is assumed as the precise ratio of the two in our
product is hard to know without chemically testing it, and 39-40% is around the limit where
brass becomes less ductile.(​2​) . The materials can be seen from figure 2.

Figure 2: Explosion picture of the BIC pen

In OpenLCA, due to the limitations of databases, ethanol emissions were estimated with
ethene and tungsten with steel. Ethene was chosen because it is the closest available type
of alcohol. Steel consists of carbon and iron, and is a metal like tungsten, so it gives us at
least an estimation of environmental effects of metals. Zinc was excluded as the source in
openLCA would give ridiculously high impacts, scale 1000x of the effect of aluminium, which
we deemed as impossible by comparing it to average energy intensiveness and thus a fault
with the dataset. By manual calculation the little amount of zinc was not deemed to be a
significant source of environmental impacts, so its exclusion is fair (18).

In addition to these, the packaging material was taken into consideration. These types of
pens are individually sold and are delivered to the store in packages containing an estimated
500 pens. An average cardboard box (weighed by a team member) weighs 200 grams and
thus the amount of package material per pen is 0,4 grams. The effect was small, so the
packaging remained the same for the eco version.

The most notable source of emissions in the original LCA was Polystyrene(barrel). Since it’s
not usually recycled, its effect is hard to be improved. By comparing different options, we
opted to change the material to aluminium. We scaled the weight needed for the barrel made
of aluminium by aluminium’s (2.7g/cm^3) and polystyrene’s (1.05g/cm^3) density values so
that the shape of the pen would stay the same although with increased weight. Aluminium
can be almost fully recycled, it maintains a good quality after recycling and it is durable. The
price difference isn't too high either with polystyrene being 1017 Euro per ton while
Aluminium is around 1826 Euro per ton.(​8​)(​9​) Recycling uses up to 95% less energy and
creates 95% less emissions in comparison to using virgin aluminium.(​7)​ The other material
plastic, polypropylene, can be recycled with up to 50% energy efficiency. Our greener
product only uses these recycled sources.

In figures 3 and 4 we look into CO2 emissions and environmental impacts (water use)
caused by the raw materials. SO2 emissions and NOx emission were investigated as well,
but as the pattern follows the same trends as CO2, the graphs are not included. In each
diagram the first bar represents the original product. The second bar represents the product
with the barrel replaced with aluminium. The third and fourth bars represent the impact of
using recycled materials of aluminium and polypropylene respectively. The 5th bar shows
the impact of using both recycled materials in the same product.

Figure 3: LCA comparison of different material for CO2

Figure 4: LCA comparison of different material for water

As seen in the graphs although virgin aluminium has a higher impact in terms of greenhouse
gases released, but when recycled this is decreased so much that it becomes the best
option, this combined with the minor benefits of recycling polypropylene make our pen have
a lower environmental impact across the 4 most relevant categories.

We looked into replacing the metal parts to aluminum as well, but the brass and tungsten
components need to be strong as most of the force is placed on them and given their small
cross sectional area this force can be relatively high. Given this and the fact that the
modulus of elasticity for the the metals aluminium, brass and tungsten are 68.3Gpa(​4​),
117Gpa(​5​) and 400Gpa(​6​) respectively we found that aluminium might be too weak for such
a task. Thus, the metal parts will be kept.

The environmental effect of the ink was also assessed in LCA. The ink includes a wide
variety of hazardous and environmentally taxing components such as carbon black and
cobalt. We investigated the ink. The first option is an inkless pen. It is made of metal and
metal instead of ink. The tip never needs to be sharpened, and will never run out. It is thus a
real replacement for throwaway plastic pens. (​12​) Price for this kind of eco-friendly pen is
significantly expensive compared to the original product, up to 3,5 more expensive. We thus
concluded that this would not be reasonable for our market. Another option is soy-based ink.
It is made from soybeans as opposed to petroleum-based ethanol ink. It was important that
the basic qualities of the ink were kept, so that the pens would still be used and would not
dry out too quickly. Although it is transported from further, Our LCA analysis concluded that it
is a more environmentally friendly option than conventional ink, while maintaining a
reasonable budget (​13​). We looked into making the ink tube replaceable, but concluded it
not to be a good fit for our target market of marketing pens, as we estimated people would
receive these types of pens enough and thus not prefer to pay to replace their ink.

2.2 Transportation
Sea and road freights are used for transportation of BIC pens (19). All distances were
calculated with the online application searoute.com. OpenLCA takes into consideration the
transport of raw material to be defined in the emissions of that material. The transportation of
the pen material to be manufactured into a pen, and the transport of the ready product to
Finland had to be taken into consideration separately.

Plastics and ethanol are commonly oil-based products (although they can be made of other
materials as well), and America is the largest oil producer(​10​)). Distance was calculated from
Dallas (Exxon Mobil headquarters) to Paris (BIC factory headquarters) and corresponds to
2417 NM by ship and 4459 km by truck. Metals are mostly mined and refined in China, and
distance from Xiangyang (average city between large copper and zinc mines) to Paris was
calculated to be 10289 km by truck.

Once the product is manufactured, it is assumed that consumers are in Finland and, once
again, trucks are used for transport between Paris and Helsinki, for a total distance of 2957
km. The emissions produced by users obtaining the product, such as driving to the store or
ordering office supplies to their company are excluded, as these cannot generally be
affected by the pen manufacturer: BIC only sells to retailers. Once used, pens are sent to
Vantaan Energia where they are burnt (​11​) after a 20 km truck transportation.

Note: 40 t lorry was used for this LCA, which corresponds to a payload of 27 t. Simple
calculations enable us to estimate a number of 3000000 pens per truck. This number,
converted in mass when needed (knowing that one pen weights 5.2 g), was used for
calculations.

Figure 5: a) Repartition of CO2 emissions for transportation; b) Repartition of VOC (Volatile

Organic Compounds) in the air for transportation.

LCA clearly shows that CO2 emissions are the highest environmental impact for
transportation. Since lorries are used for the longer distances, they are responsible for most
emissions. LCA analysis shows that all other environmental impacts are negligible regarding
transportation. An example is given by Figure 5 b, with emissions of Volatile Organic
Compounds below 10^10.

Transportation impact is low compared to the raw materials impact. But there are still
possibilities to reduce it.
- Use trains instead of trucks.
 - Use materials that are produced close to the manufacturing place. Plastic can be
sourced from recycling and refining factory, situated close to Lyon, in France. They
have the know-how to recycle polypropylene and refine it into granules and pellets.
This avoids ship transportation and largely reduces the CO2 emissions.
- Since polystyrene is replaced by aluminium, a French aluminium supplier is
considered, called Trimet Aluminium.
- Once used, pens are sent to a plastic recycling and refining factory in Riihimäki,
Finland, (20) located at 70 km of Helsinki.
- Mine metals in Europe, for environmental, social, economic and strategic reasons
(Europe competitiveness):
- Copper mine: Kevitsa mine, Finland.
- Zinc mine: Boliden Tara, Ireland.
- Tungsten mine: Los Santos Mine, Spain.

By taking all of these changes into account, the transport emissions of CO2 are decreased
by 63% for our green BIC pen, as seen in figure 6.

Figure 6: Comparison of LCA of transportation

2.3 Manufacture and assembly

Manufacture and assembly effects were estimated with energy use, as estimations of the life
cycle emissions were not included in the OpenLCA free databases. It was estimated that
manufacturing and assembling the product takes 40 MJ per kg for the metal parts and 10 MJ
per kg for the plastic parts. (16,17). These were not significant compared to other effects in
the original or in n the eco version.

2.4 Use Phase

While using, the only substance released is the ink. According to our measurements, there is
only 0,2 g of ink in the pen. The paper that has been drawn on will in Finland be either
burned or recycled. If recycled, the ink will have to be de-inked from the produced pulp.
Either case, 0,2 g of ink can be assumed not to have a measurable effect. Also, paper
end-of-life is out of the scope of our study, and use-phase emissions are thus excluded from
the evaluation. The use phase thus in our scope produces no emissions, so there are no
changes for the greener version either.

2.5 End of Life

In Finland all municipal waste is burned with only a couple exceptions. All plastic is thus
either recycled or burned.​ F ​ or the current product we are assuming that the pen ends up in
the mixed waste, because the different materials of the pen are not easily removable and
sorting is thus unlikely. According to the LCA, the burning processes, especially the burning
of the plastic, has significant ecotoxicity, eutrophication and acidification effects. The process
also produces energy, but more energy would be saved by recycling than by burning the
plastic (​14​). In general, even considering the energy the recycling process takes, the global
warming impact of recycling plastic is 25-75 % compared to virgin plastic (​15​) and upt to
95% for aluminum.(​7​). Recyclability of the pen is thus very important for our ecopen.
Aluminum to be more durable through multiple recycling cycles and is more likely to be
recycled due to common recycling systems of metal. All parts of the pen are easy to be
separated, and metal parts are assumed to be recycled. The saved energy by the recycling
process is considered in the raw materials part: 95% percent of emissions can be saved by
using recycled compared to virgin aluminum even taking into consideration the energy the
recycling process takes. (7).

3. Interpretation & Conclusion

To sum up, our greener pen will be significantly more environmentally friendly. By adding up
all the improvement, our greener version of the bic pen is able to cut emissions back by half.
As analyzed and described above, it’s polystyrene parts will be replaced with recycled
aluminium, and it’s polypropylene parts will be replaced by recycled polypropylene. The ink
is replaced with a soy based ink formula. Transportation methods will also be altered. The
product will be made easily recyclable by making the part easily separable. The product’s
use phase and appearance to the end user remain similar, apart from a little added weight,
which means that making it greener will not affect user experience, except for the added
brand value of greenness.

The eco version is a testament to recycling – the reuse of processed materials already in
use all over the world instead of always starting anew and exhausting resources. Our
solution is based on definitive facts and calculations on how to improve the existing form of
the pen. The solution is more executable and affordable than any other solution, which
means this solution can be implemented without delay and therefore helps our environment
most effectively.
4. Sources:

1. FAQ. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2020, from

https://www.bicworld.com/en/faq#accordion-item-386​ (1)
2. Media, S. (2019, August 29). Difference Between Copper, Brass and Bronze: Metal
Supermarkets. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from
https://www.metalsupermarkets.com/difference-between-copper-brass-bronze/​ (2)
3. Articles. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2020, from
https://www.totalmateria.com/page.aspx?ID=CheckArticle&site=ktn&NM=364​ (3)
4. Sponsored by Aalco - Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Metals StockistMay 17 2005. (2020,
October 16). Aluminium: Specifications, Properties, Classifications and Classes.
Retrieved October 23, 2020, from
https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=2863#:~:text=It%20can%20also%20be
%20cast,for%20some%20heat%2Dtreatable%20alloys​.(4)
5. 2012, W. (2013, July 11). Brass UNS C28000. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from
https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6380​(5)
6. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2020, from
http://www.matweb.com/search/datasheet_print.aspx?matguid=37fde7152eb94e3db
cbde8e2edc0a497​(6)
7. Why is recycling aluminium so important? Aluminium Packaging Recycling. (2020,
May 12). Retrieved October 23, 2020, from
https://alupro.org.uk//why-is-recycling-aluminium-so-important/​ (7)
8. Aluminium PRICE Today | Aluminium Spot Price Chart | Live Price of Aluminium per
Ounce | Markets Insider. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2020, from
https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/aluminum-price​(8)
9. European contract price polystyrene PS • Polyestertime. (2020, July 16). Retrieved
October 23, 2020, from
https://www.polyestertime.com/european-contract-price-polystyrene/​(9)
10. Defterios, J. (2019, November 08). America is now the world's top oil producer, but
cracks are emerging. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/07/business/america-number-one-oil-producer-now/i
ndex.html​ (10)
11. Waste-to-energy gives a new life for rubbish. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2020,
from ​https://www.vantaanenergia.fi/en/waste-to-energy-gives-a-new-life-for-rubbish
(11)
12. Ryan, J. (2019, November 19). 10 Eco-Friendly & Sustainable Writing Utensils.
Retrieved October 23, 2020, from
https://ethical.net/sustainability/sustainable-writing-utensils/​ (12)
13. User, S. (n.d.). Hague Print - What are eco-friendly inks? Retrieved October 23,
2020, from ​https://hagueprint.com/blog/item/780-what-are-eco-friendly-inks​ (13)
14. Morris1, J. (2004, October 04). Comparative LCAs for Curbside Recycling Versus
Either Landfilling or Incineration with Energy Recovery (12 pp). Retrieved October
23, 2020, from ​https://link.springer.com/article/10.1065/lca2004.09.180.10​ (14)
15. Shen, L., Worrell, E., & Patel, M. (2010, August 03). Open-loop recycling: A LCA
case study of PET bottle-to-fibre recycling. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921344910001618​ (15)
16. Madan, Jatinder & Mani, Mahesh & Lyons, Kevin. (2013). Characterizing Energy
Consumption of the Injection Molding Process. MSEC 1222. (16)
17. Konstantinos Salonitis, Mark R. Jolly, Binxu Zeng, Hamid Mehrabi, (2016)
Improvements in energy consumption and environmental impact by novel single shot
melting process for casting, Journal of Cleaner Production vol.137, 1532-1542. (17)
18. Energy requirements for zinc. Galvo Guiomar. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Energy-requirements-in-GJ-t-for-copper-zinc-and
-gold-production-as-a-function-of-the_fig2_309731859​ (18)
19. Road freight transport by type of good.. Ec Europa. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Road_freight_transport_b
y_type_of_goods​ (19)
20. Circular economy village Riihimäki. Fortum. Retrieved October 20, 2020 from
https://www.fortum.com/media/2017/11/circular-economy-village-riihimaki-finland​ (20)