Bamboo, Recycled and Plastic-Free Pens Compared

A bamboo pen has a barrel made from bamboo. A recycled pen has a barrel made from recycled aluminium, recycled plastic or recycled card. A plastic-free pen has no plastic in any part, which is rare, because the refill, the spring and the trims are usually made from something else. So the material in a pen's name tells you about the barrel, and the product page tells you about the rest.

We supply branded bamboo pens and pencils, and recycled pens, to businesses, charities, schools and clubs across the UK. This guide compares them by material: what each one is, how it's branded, and what the product page actually claims, so you can match a pen to a sustainability brief and answer the questions that come back.

What are bamboo pens made of, and how are they branded?

A bamboo barrel with metal or plastic fittings, printed or engraved.

Bamboo is a fast-growing grass, and a barrel made from it has a natural grain that can be printed or engraved. The Curvy Bamboo Pens and the Bamboo Ballpens have bamboo barrels with a chrome clip and are screen printed with your logo. The Wicker Bamboo Ballpoint Pen - Engraved is made from FSC certified bamboo and is laser engraved, which leaves a darker, tone-on-tone mark with no ink. The Equinox Bamboo Ballpen pairs a bamboo barrel with aluminium.

For pencils, the EcoWrite Bamboo Pencil does the same job at a school, a workshop or a stand. The full range is in our bamboo pens.

The fittings matter for the claim. On most bamboo pens the clip, the nose cone and the refill are metal or plastic, so a bamboo pen is a pen with a natural barrel rather than a pen with no plastic in it.

What are recycled aluminium pens made of?

Aluminium that's been recycled, and on some pens the recycled content is certified to a named standard.

The Vantage Recycled Pen - Engraved and the Elite Recycled Metal Pen - Engraved are both made from GRS certified recycled aluminium. GRS is the Global Recycled Standard, which verifies recycled content and tracks it through the supply chain, so the recycled claim on these pens has been checked rather than asserted. Both are laser engraved, and both come in printed versions too.

The Arena GRS Aluminium Ballpen with Bamboo Trim combines a GRS aluminium barrel with a bamboo trim, if you want both materials in one pen. Our guide to buying eco-friendly merchandise without the greenwashing explains the standards and what each one verifies.

Recycled aluminium suits a brief with a recycled-content target, and it's the material to choose when you also want the pen kept, because a metal pen lasts.

What are recycled plastic pens made of?

Plastic recovered from products that have already been used, and some product pages say where it came from.

The Contour GRS Recycled Ballpen - Full Colour is made from GRS recycled plastic and prints your design in full colour on one side, which makes it the recycled option for a multi-colour logo. The Value Twist Eco Pen is our Value Twist Frost Pen made from recycled plastics. The Alessio Recycled PET Ballpoint Pen is made from certified recycled PET from post-consumer water and soda bottles, and its product page says plainly that the refill and the spring are the exception.

That last page is the model for an honest eco claim. It names the material, names the source, and says which parts the claim doesn't cover.

What are card and plant-based pens made of?

A card barrel with trims made from a plant-based plastic.

The Eden Recycled Card And Corn Pen has a barrel made from recycled carton with trims made from corn plastic. The Card and Wheat Ballpen has a card barrel with trims made from wheat-based plastic. Both are click-action pens: the Eden is pad printed and the Card and Wheat Ballpen is screen printed.

Describe these by their materials and leave it there. A card barrel is a card barrel, and the product page names what the trims are made from.

What about pens made from more than one material?

Read which part is which.

The Savana Recycled Metal & Bamboo Ballpen has a recycled aluminium barrel, a bamboo plunger and a clear PETG surround. It's a good example of a pen where three materials do three jobs, and where the bamboo in the name describes one part of the pen. That's normal, and the product page is where to see the breakdown.

What does plastic free mean on a pen? That there's no plastic in any part, including the refill, the spring, the clip and the trims.

Most eco pens, ours included, pair an eco barrel with conventional fittings. A bamboo pen with a plastic refill isn't plastic free, and neither is a recycled aluminium pen with a plastic nose cone. So if your brief says plastic free, work from the material details on the product page rather than the product name, and ask our Support Centre about anything they don't cover.

The refill is usually what rules a pen out, so check it first.

How is each material branded?

Print on bamboo, card and recycled plastic, and print or engraving on recycled aluminium.

Engraving on bamboo leaves a darker mark rather than a bright one, and a print on a natural bamboo barrel reads slightly warmer than the same print on white plastic. Our guide to how many colours you can print on a promotional pen explains what each method means for a multi-colour logo.

Which eco pen should you choose?

The one that gets used.

A pen that writes well and stays in someone's bag for a year does more good than a greener one that's dropped in a drawer after the event. So order a sample through the product page where one's available, check how it writes, and choose the quantity you'll actually hand out. The product page also shows current pricing, the sample terms and the delivery date before you order.

If the brief is a recycled-content target, start with recycled aluminium or recycled plastic. If it's a natural-material brief, start with bamboo. If it's plastic free, work from the material list, and expect the refill to be the sticking point. For pens beyond the eco range, our guide to the best promotional pens for businesses covers the rest.