First thought: your Pilot Metropolitan shouldn’t be scratchy. Maybe the tines are misaligned, or it could use a good cleaning?
Second thought: do you refill your cartridges with a blunt syringe straight from the inkwell? This can open up a world of ink possibilities (not necessarily in line with a no waste policy).
Also: I love the Choosing Keeping store, and Kaweco and Pilot fountain pens.
Thanks for the suggestions. The Metropolitan is fine now. Straight out of the box, it just didn't want to flow. The other Pilot pen was lovely - as if already used for months. The Metropolitan is narrower, though, and maybe the ink I was using was too thick. To your second question, I tried the syringe refilling, but found it too messy. The cartridges don't seem to want the ink to go back into them. However, the convertors that fit Pilot pens are badly designed. They pull up less ink than the universal or plunger kinds (like those you get for Parker Vectors). So I might give the syringe another go. Any tips?
Happy to hear the Metropolitan works well now! I guess my tips would be: always put something protective underneath while refilling cartridges, don’t refill them to the brim, and accept some messiness (like inky hands). Show those cartridges who is the boss but show them with love, like bottle-feeding a kitten. Pilot inks are the best, the Pilot Iroshizuku range offers up a world of colour if you want it, and even world of blues, if blues are your thing. I love Kon-Peki at the moment. But nobody (including me) (what is happening to my grammar here) seems to like Pilot’s converters, so I don’t bother with them.
Thanks. Having finished the entry, I thought that vintage pens has to be my next step. Any suggestions where to look for them, apart from ebay/online? I'd prefer to be able to try before I buy. You've helped me form a resolution.
You’re right: eBay offers a wide range of options. But if you're close to Notting Hill, there's a small shop in one of the arcades on Portobello Rd that you should visit. Vintage pens can be unpredictable in terms of nib (I personally prefer flex, especially Waterman), ink flow, and so on. So, yes it's best to try the pen before purchasing it (price also varies widely). Overall, if you find one that suits you, vintage pens are much better than new ones.
So I've now dug out my very old, non-cartridge, cheap fountain pen and found it still works. I thought the ink container might have rotted but it seems OK for now. And I've bought a bottle of ink from Diamine in Liverpool, which means the ink miles aren't many. I don't know why I haven't thought of that old fountain pen before, rather than emailing the council to ask if they recycle the plastic in biros - which they don't - or buying biros made from old tyres and cardboard, or whatever it was - a short-lived enterprise on the part of the manufacturer.
I'm struggling to understand the environmental benefits of pen and paper if electronic devices are still being bought and used.
- Retyping a first draft from paper notes vs directly on a PC is a minimal electricity saving of a few hours.
- Using a phone to capture, annotate and categorise voice or text uses no additional consumables like notebooks, pens and ink.
- Not printing a first draft in its entirety saves toner and paper.
So how are these putative carbon or environmental savings being costed and calculated when the undoubted cost of the electronic devices has already been sunk into the equation?
These are minimal benefits, I admit. And if I have music playing on a device whilst writing, that's still the electricity ticking up. I keep my laptops and desktops until they stop working for basic things (signing in to the university cloud system has now ceased to function on my 2015 laptop). But they're Macs, and built-in obsolescence all the way. Phones are even worse. Where are the modular computers and mobile phones we were promised? Replace the bit that needs replacing. My guess is that the impact of a new phone every couple of years (though I refurbished ones) is more than eight notebooks. Because the energy that's gone into the phone, and that it uses, is more. But I'm not able to make the calculations. Primitively, I think something that's 'off' is likely to be better than something that's on. However, perhaps the solution here is buying vintage paper, as with vintage pens. Any hard evidence, one way or the other, on notebooks vs phone notes, would be useful.
Taking this comparison, a phone already manufactured and bought is better a phone used intensively than partially replaced with a physical alternative. Also, electricity for devices could come from domestic solar (but then again, those panels/batteries also have a cost).
Device manufacturers profiting from deliberate hardware and OS obsolescence (including their peripherals) definitely remains an issue requiring more oversight.
What is most concerning is that it's the generations who will be affected most by environmental degradation who hold the greater desire to upgrade more frequently.
Oh, Toby, another area of one's life to worry about. My only offering is this recent news item about publishers using thinner paper and different fonts in order to produce lighter books and therefore reduce costs AND emissions.
Yes, it's all worry, isn't it? Thanks for sharing that article. I hope publishers dump the B-format they've used for paperbacks since Picador and King Penguins switched in the 1980s. There's no reason why pocket friendly paperbacks couldn't return. The main problem with UK publishing, as I understand it, is that there is almost no supply of post consumer waste paper, and that the FSC mark means very little. Old growth forest is still cut down to supply it. That's why I put in a link to the Tree to Me campaign. Here's a bit more. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/19/society-of-authors-creates-new-campaign-to-help-writers-hold-publishers-to-account-on-sustainability
First thought: your Pilot Metropolitan shouldn’t be scratchy. Maybe the tines are misaligned, or it could use a good cleaning?
Second thought: do you refill your cartridges with a blunt syringe straight from the inkwell? This can open up a world of ink possibilities (not necessarily in line with a no waste policy).
Also: I love the Choosing Keeping store, and Kaweco and Pilot fountain pens.
Thanks for the suggestions. The Metropolitan is fine now. Straight out of the box, it just didn't want to flow. The other Pilot pen was lovely - as if already used for months. The Metropolitan is narrower, though, and maybe the ink I was using was too thick. To your second question, I tried the syringe refilling, but found it too messy. The cartridges don't seem to want the ink to go back into them. However, the convertors that fit Pilot pens are badly designed. They pull up less ink than the universal or plunger kinds (like those you get for Parker Vectors). So I might give the syringe another go. Any tips?
Happy to hear the Metropolitan works well now! I guess my tips would be: always put something protective underneath while refilling cartridges, don’t refill them to the brim, and accept some messiness (like inky hands). Show those cartridges who is the boss but show them with love, like bottle-feeding a kitten. Pilot inks are the best, the Pilot Iroshizuku range offers up a world of colour if you want it, and even world of blues, if blues are your thing. I love Kon-Peki at the moment. But nobody (including me) (what is happening to my grammar here) seems to like Pilot’s converters, so I don’t bother with them.
Almost only use vintage fountain pens. Can be more expensive than new plasticky pens, but that’s recycling raised to the power of whatever
Thanks. Having finished the entry, I thought that vintage pens has to be my next step. Any suggestions where to look for them, apart from ebay/online? I'd prefer to be able to try before I buy. You've helped me form a resolution.
You’re right: eBay offers a wide range of options. But if you're close to Notting Hill, there's a small shop in one of the arcades on Portobello Rd that you should visit. Vintage pens can be unpredictable in terms of nib (I personally prefer flex, especially Waterman), ink flow, and so on. So, yes it's best to try the pen before purchasing it (price also varies widely). Overall, if you find one that suits you, vintage pens are much better than new ones.
Dolphin arcade I think it was…
So I've now dug out my very old, non-cartridge, cheap fountain pen and found it still works. I thought the ink container might have rotted but it seems OK for now. And I've bought a bottle of ink from Diamine in Liverpool, which means the ink miles aren't many. I don't know why I haven't thought of that old fountain pen before, rather than emailing the council to ask if they recycle the plastic in biros - which they don't - or buying biros made from old tyres and cardboard, or whatever it was - a short-lived enterprise on the part of the manufacturer.
I'm struggling to understand the environmental benefits of pen and paper if electronic devices are still being bought and used.
- Retyping a first draft from paper notes vs directly on a PC is a minimal electricity saving of a few hours.
- Using a phone to capture, annotate and categorise voice or text uses no additional consumables like notebooks, pens and ink.
- Not printing a first draft in its entirety saves toner and paper.
So how are these putative carbon or environmental savings being costed and calculated when the undoubted cost of the electronic devices has already been sunk into the equation?
These are minimal benefits, I admit. And if I have music playing on a device whilst writing, that's still the electricity ticking up. I keep my laptops and desktops until they stop working for basic things (signing in to the university cloud system has now ceased to function on my 2015 laptop). But they're Macs, and built-in obsolescence all the way. Phones are even worse. Where are the modular computers and mobile phones we were promised? Replace the bit that needs replacing. My guess is that the impact of a new phone every couple of years (though I refurbished ones) is more than eight notebooks. Because the energy that's gone into the phone, and that it uses, is more. But I'm not able to make the calculations. Primitively, I think something that's 'off' is likely to be better than something that's on. However, perhaps the solution here is buying vintage paper, as with vintage pens. Any hard evidence, one way or the other, on notebooks vs phone notes, would be useful.
It is tricky to calculate. Perhaps the closest comparison is studies of paper vs. ebooks. See, for example, this evaluation: https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2020/08/the-environmental-footprint-of-paper-vs-electronic-books/
Taking this comparison, a phone already manufactured and bought is better a phone used intensively than partially replaced with a physical alternative. Also, electricity for devices could come from domestic solar (but then again, those panels/batteries also have a cost).
Device manufacturers profiting from deliberate hardware and OS obsolescence (including their peripherals) definitely remains an issue requiring more oversight.
What is most concerning is that it's the generations who will be affected most by environmental degradation who hold the greater desire to upgrade more frequently.
Oh, Toby, another area of one's life to worry about. My only offering is this recent news item about publishers using thinner paper and different fonts in order to produce lighter books and therefore reduce costs AND emissions.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c24pqrvvll9o
It's not all down to you. You've made me think, though.
Yes, it's all worry, isn't it? Thanks for sharing that article. I hope publishers dump the B-format they've used for paperbacks since Picador and King Penguins switched in the 1980s. There's no reason why pocket friendly paperbacks couldn't return. The main problem with UK publishing, as I understand it, is that there is almost no supply of post consumer waste paper, and that the FSC mark means very little. Old growth forest is still cut down to supply it. That's why I put in a link to the Tree to Me campaign. Here's a bit more. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/19/society-of-authors-creates-new-campaign-to-help-writers-hold-publishers-to-account-on-sustainability