Our commitment to the environment

Lecce Pen Company has a very long tradition of promoting environmentally friendly products and we are considered somewhat of an innovator in this field. Indeed it can be said with some satisfaction that we were manufacturing products sympathetic to our eco system before it became a general fashion.

• ABS is the most extensively utilised polymer in the manufacture of Lecce Pen products because it is recyclable and it is free from cadmium and lead.

• The Lecce Pen Green brand was expressly introduced to include a range of writing instruments made from Mater-bi. It is a corn starch–based material, fully biodegradable, and can successfully replace standard plastic materials. Mater-bi does not release any metal or toxic residues, it comes from the earth and it returns to the earth without altering the eco-system.

• Green Flock is the product name given to ear cotton buds made from a specific grade of Mater-bi material. It becomes water-soluble in a very short time and therefore very easy and safe to dispose through conventional means.

• Water bottles and soft drinks bottles are usually made from a material commonly known as PET. It is a popular material for recycling as it is normally transparent which renders it suitable for remoulding into other products as it can be pigmented in various colours, including white. Various recycling programmes exist throughout the developed world to collect these containers by means of recycling banks or stations and these are reduced to chips and sold to moulders. In Lecce’s case the recycled PET, through a specially developed process, is transformed into a material referred to as ECO-REC and we use this material to mould ballpoint pens.

• 1992 The Green Pen was selected as ‘Caneta da Eco 92’, the official ballpen for the world Eco-conference held in Rio de Janeiro.

- We were sponsors of the Moro di Venezia for the America’s Cup and the Green Pen won the Public Oscar Award at the 41st World Fair for Invention, Research and Industrial Innovation of Brussels.

With this product, Lecce Pen also won the Knights Cross for research and Innovation.

-The Green Pen also obtained the CEE safety mark for children.

• 1994 Lecce Pen Company took part in the first International Show for the ecologic project in Brussels

• 1996 Lecce Pen was selected as a sponsor for an environmental campaign ‘save your beach’ in cooperation with Legambiente (the foremost Italian association for environmental protection).

• 1997 Lecce Pen took part in the interactive and multi-media show ‘R come Rifiuti’ (G like Garbage) held in Turin

• 1998 The Green Management Institute was founded (GMI). This originated from the

EU Life Project and today it includes some leading industrial companies with the aim of promoting ‘clean’ materials and technologies for eco-friendly competitiveness.

• February 23, 2005 The GMI presented a new recycling process for recovering the polyethylene, aluminium and paper components of cardboard beverage containers (Tetra Pack alone produces about 105 billion packs per year across the globe) Two of the components, the aluminium and polyethylene when processed correctly into one homogenous material exhibits excellent moulding qualities and can replace virgin plastic for many popular applications.

This new or secondary material is called ECOALLENE and it offers huge potential for the development of new and existing products both inside and outside the promotions market.