The TreeSmart pencil does not suffer from the familiar "eco-friendly" drawbacks of being inferior and expensive. It is a fine pencil, in many ways superior to wood pencils.
This pencil is far better than other "recycled" pencils I have suffered with. The "recycled" pencils I am most familiar with are made from recycled fibers (money, denim, newspapers) which have been shredded, mixed with a hard resin, then extruded around a hard plasticky lead core. Like Frankenstein's Monster, the fact that it can be done is impressive, but the product itself is dreadful: the extruded pencil barrel is heavy, crumbles away from the lead, does not sharpen easily, and the lead itself is hard and does not leave a dark line.
In contrast, the TreeSmart pencil is not extruded; instead, a glue-like binder is added to sheets of newspaper, and the newspaper is wound around a pencil lead, like paper towels rolled around a cardboard tube. This binder is fairly solid on the finished pencil, so the pencil doesn't tear away or unravel the way one sharpens a "grease pencil" or china marker. This paper-winding process virtually eliminates uncentered pencil leads by ensuring that the barrel is evenly distributed around the core. Furthermore, the paper tends to cushion and support the lead better than wood pencils. This pencil feels a bit heavier than a wood pencil, but it is still comfortable to write with.
The TreeSmart pencil claims to be made from "100% recycled newspaper." I don't know how much of this recycled paper is post-consumer, pre-consumer, or whatever. As you sharpen the pencil, you can see printing on the pencil's barrel as its interior is exposed. If you use a blade sharpener, this printing may actually be readable on the shavings. There actually seems to be 2 types of paper wrapped around this core: a white paper with printing on the inside, and a gray paper with no printing on the outside of the pencil.
I shudder to think what would happen if you soaked this pencil in water for a few hours. I suspect that the paper would basically turn into mush and fall off the pencil core. This might not be the safest pencil to bring into a wet environment, but I suspect that many wood pencils would also warp and/or split apart if sufficiently waterlogged. The Staedtler Wopex (which also claims to be "eco-friendly") might be your best bet for a water-drenched environment.
My user experience is good. The pencil produces a nice, dark line, with smooth, soft lead. The eraser is soft and has a bright green color. The ferrule is a gold-colored metal.
This pencil sharpens very easily with either a blade or a burr sharpener. There is a very faint chemical smell as it is sharpened, but this dissipates quickly and is not overly unpleasant.
The pencil is not really painted, but given a peculiar printing with blotchy random letters to resemble newsprint on the somewhat unattractive gray exterior, then the pencil is given a thin but pleasant varnish. And then TreeSmart smudges its logo, slogan, and website URL onto the pencil in dark green ink.
This pencil is very similar to the O'Bon pencil, but it is not identical. The O'Bon uses a very similar newspaper-wrapped-around-a-lead-core process, but O'Bon adds a decorative paint job and even 4-color printing. The TreeSmart is more Americanized, with the familiar conveniences of an eraser and ferrule. I also never noticed an odor while sharpening the O'Bon.
These pencils are fairly reasonable: TreeSmart sells boxes of 24 for $8; Amazon sells these for $12. Unfortunately, I have not seen smaller quantities available, but I can assure you that this is a fine pencil and you will not be disappointed, if you can accept the minor drawbacks I describe above.
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