http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/treehugger-deals-obon-stationary.php

O’BON looks to finally be expanding their L’Artiste line with the introduction of an ‘Art Block’ product, which is more commonly known to Americans as being a variation of a sketch pad for professional artists.

According to a company representative who asked to remain anonymous for fear of dismissal, explained that these new art blocks would come branded under the O’BON sub-brand, “L’Artiste”. O’BON has found success with their set of art pencils, where each set includes 10 pencils of varying levels of graphite hardness. The new art block will accompany the L’Artiste pencil set with a pad of pages (number of pages included with the art block is unknown) made from O’BON’s own bagasse sugarcane paper, a eco alternative from wood paper. A release date for the art block is unknown at this time. I will update as I receive more information.

O’BON has made a point in insisting that their pencils are far more aesthetically appealing than the traditional yellow pencil, most of which come with an eraser attached via a metal, aluminum clasp. But does the clear fact that O’BON pencils are beautiful outweigh the simple inconvenience of not having an eraser on top of the pencil?

The simple and most obvious answer would be no. To me, a pencil isn’t just a pencil, it’s a piece of art. O’BON makes a clear statement in their products, that they don’t want them to be a part of the mundane and unoriginal stock of products that continually seems to saturate the school and office supplies industry. Instead, they have set out to create something different. If O’BON were to design their pencils exactly like all the rest, then none of us would have so much interest in them.

I do understand the convenience argument from people who aren’t looking for anything special in a pencil and don’t seem to care much about how it’s made or about how eco friendly it is. The eraser on the top of a pencil is consequently for the simple-minded, for those to tend not to dig very deep. But then again, I’m just giving my own opinion. It’s just good to see O’BON stay true to their slogan in offering ‘something different’. Besides, just use an eraser cap if you’re so damn picky!

This sugarcane paper, also known as bagasse (pronounced buh-gas), is an environmentally friendly alternative to paper made from wood. It is 100% completely bio-degradable, non-toxic, and naturally white. All of O’BON’s notebooks come with bagasse paper, in three different sizes – A4, A5, and A6, along with three different series – O’BONanza (fruits ) Series, Birds Series and Sugarcane Series.

Rumors have been flying around lately that O’BON will soon be introducing bagasse paper for printing in laser and inkjet printers, which would be fantastic for businesses looking to turn green. I can’t wait to see what’s next for the bagasse revolution!

Remember, its buhhhh-gassss… tell your friends!

-Blimey Bjorn

It starts with something we use often in our daily lives – a pencil. How many trees have been cut down to manufacture wooden pencils? The answer – A LOT. How many trees have been cut down to make newspapers? The answer – once again, A LOT. Now wouldn’t it be a good idea to cut some corners here, if it were to save Mother Nature an entire pine forest? The answer – YES!

O’BON does what many other pencil companies fail to take into consideration first – take something old and used, like newspapers, and turn it into something that serves another purpose. At O’BON, they take used newspapers and, instead of throwing them into landfills, make pencils out of that newspaper.

Being environmentally responsible means that you are conscious and aware of your carbon footprint, where you are doing everything in your power as an individual to make sure that there is less of a footprint. Recycling is where it all starts, which also happens to be one of the simplest ways to reduce your footprint.
O’BON takes the idea of environmental responsibility by recycling old newspaper, yet instead of stopping there, they take it one step further and produce something that we can use in pencils and stationery products. O’BON is essentially saving our world from environmental destruction by not cutting down any more trees for pencil production, when all the resources needed to make pencils are already available.
Congrats to O’BON… Saving the world, one pencil at a time.

-Blimey Bjorn

I was sitting in my Ethics class one day when suddenly in the middle of a discussion about environmental issues, this dude says, “I don’t believe in global warming.” The class goes dead quiet for about 3 seconds until someone pipes up, “So I take it you don’t believe in gravity too?”

I’m not an idiot. I’m from northern Minnesota. We relish in a warm day. When it’s 30°F, we start breaking out the flips flops and tank tops. Somewhere on YouTube there is a video of Minnesotans singing about how awesome it’d be if we had a bit of global warming. But when it’s suddenly 40°F in the middle of January (when the average temperature is supposed to be about 30 below freezing), you get this creepy feeling that maybe Mother Nature is well, broken.

Again, I’m not an idiot. Earth has been around for eons with a whole lot more problems plaguing it without us little people running around to deface things further. A million other factors contribute to the rising average temperature. Like, when the oceans are warmed up, they release CO2, which warms the atmosphere even more, thus warms the oceans; I hope you see where I’m going with this. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Before the Industrial Revolution took place in mid 18th century, planet earth had about 280 parts per million (ppm) by volume of CO2 in its atmosphere. That sorta means if you carved out a little box containing a million molecules of air from the atmosphere in 1750, there’ll be about 280 CO2 molecules in there. Now this has been going on for a good 10,000 years. Today, it officially clocks in at 384ppm, where it has never been for about 20 million years. It is estimated that by mid-century it’d be 550ppm, of which nobody is sure is even livable. Put one and two together and you’d realize that it is by our own deforestation-loving, fuel-burning hobbies that we are slowly but surely poisoning ourselves (Friedman, 2008).

Think of all the times you suddenly feel like it’s getting harder to breathe, and you suck air in deeper than you normally would. Then you feel a little bit better, stop thinking about it and you move along. That’s the issue everybody has. “Hey it’s a problem, but it’s no big deal. I’ll just breathe in deeper.” Hate to break it to you, but we can’t adapt to global warming. Evolution isn’t coming soon enough to equip you with CO2 friendly lungs. I think it’s a little bit easier working on changing our habits than our anatomy.

So pull the plug whenever you’re not using your laptop, reuse that empty jar of pasta sauce. Buy newspaper pencils instead of the standard wood pencil (they’re sturdier!). Anything that could help, do it. Don’t ignore the fact that forests are getting destroyed only to be whittled down into a little pencil and a few sheets of paper. It’s proven fact that you can utilize other sustainable resources to manufacture those. Call me, I’ll send you samples.

As for the ocean contributing to global warming? That epic thing that covers 70% of the Earth’s surface? I’m thinking, it’s been around long, long before we were. They managed to cap the CO2 level at 280ppm for 10,000 years; we couldn’t even keep it there for 300.

- Michelle Muchly

Here, giggle at this for a bit:

Coming Soon?

Judging by this picture, it seems that O’BON’s Endangered Species Series will consist of a Woodpecker, Polar Bear, Red Panda, Chameleon and Cheetah. This looks like images for pencils although that could easily be accompanied by other products such as notebooks or fact books. Also, there is no information on potential release dates for these products. Let me remind everyone that all we have is this image, and that is no guarantee of anything. However, the images look fantastic and I’m certainly excited about the direction O’BON is heading.