Ticonderoga RENEW Recycled Tire Pencils #2, 10 Pencil Pack (96220)

by Dixon Ticonderoga

• First pencil made from recycled tires
• Black graphite point for smooth, easy writing
• Certified non-toxic
• Latex free eraser
• Use with manual sharpener, not electric

Product Description

Why cut down new trees, when old tires make perfectly great pencils yes, it's a surprising idea, but there are lots of old tires out there littering the landscape. In fact, estimates are that globally, one tire is discarded per person each year, and in the U.S. alone, over 2 billion scrapped tires are sitting in stockpiles. So Ticonderoga, the world's pencil experts, has created a great use for those scrapped tires. Ticonderoga Renew Tire Pencils are made from a unique, patented process using the rubber compound from recycled tires. Pencils have a black graphite point for smooth, easy writing. Pencils come with a latex-free eraser at one end, and are certified non-toxic. And this product is about as green as it gets - even the box is made from 100% reclaimed fiber with a minimum 35% post-consumer waste. Use a manual sharpener, please, tire pencils don't work well with electric sharpeners.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars 'Recycled' doesn't have to mean 'garbage!' December 29, 2010

By A. Ramos

Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought a box of these because I needed some good #2 (min) pencils to work with- and the recycled bit sounded like a good idea too, however.. The rubber does not sharpen well and the writing quality of this pencil is horrid! This was clearly not up to #2 standards and using one to take tests readable by a grading computer (requiring a #2) will likely be rejected. It is absolutely the worst experience I've had with a simple tool such as the pencil. If you want a GREAT pencil consider spending more on a box of Blackwing's by Palomino.

By the way- I gave the rest of this box of recycled pencils to my seven year old daughter who shouldn't know a good pencil from a bad one and the following day I found them in her garbage can. Looks like I have a smart little cookie on my hands.

Sorry to be so negative but I'm hoping to save you the money and time wasted on this product.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Intentions are good, but needs improvement September 6, 2010

By Dame Droiture VINE™ VOICE

Amazon Verified Purchase

Making pencil casings from recycled materials is a great idea to replace the (albeit sustainable) wood-cased pencils, usually made from some type of cedar. However, with the exception of recycled bamboo or newspaper pencils, other materials tend to be less rigid and require a modified graphite -- which, in turn, is itself less rigid. The result is that you cannot sharpen these pencils in an electric sharpener, and the leads do tend to break if you sharpen to a fine point.

Another drawback to these pencils (or the type of lead used within, rather) is that the 'erasability' decreases. There seems to be some sort of flexible polymer in with the graphite mixture that sticks to the paper. Only the best quality erasers seem to remove the marks cleanly-- and forget clean erasures if you're writing on any type of glossy or semi-glossy paper.

Yet, due to the material of the pencil case, these pencils feel solid and heavy, and are thicker than most standard pencils (following the Ticonderoga triangular shape). I actually like these aspects, but some may not.

I'm on the fence between giving this product 3 or 4 stars.

1.0 out of 5 stars Absolute junk! May 8, 2012

By Jon Chang

I got these pencils from my local stationery store. I thought: cool! Recycled pencils! These should be awesome! In the past, I'd used recycled pencils with waste paper cores. Those worked like a charm, but these are crap!

The pencils are hard to sharpen. They are also not meant to be used with electronic sharpeners. If you primarily use an electronic pencil sharpener to sharpen your pencils, these won't work, according to the box. I'd tried one before reading the box and my awesome X-Acto 1744 Heavy-Duty Electric Pencil Sharpener, Black, 1 Unit ground and stuttered against the foreign material. Might as well use a knife to manually sharpen each one.

Also, the lead in these is sub-par compared to any other decent pencil. No other pencil has such a terrible lead. It doesn't write dark enough for a Number 2 Pencil, its smoothness is mediocre at best, and if you do get it to a super fine point, expect it to break at first touch to the paper.

Two things that are a plus include the flexibility of the pencil and its eraser. The pencil, being made out of recycled tire material can flex quite a bit more, so less breaks there. And the eraser erases very well with almost no marks remaining. I use a separate eraser, so that's a moot point. And I don't regularly bend my pencils so much that they break.

But really. If you like rough, light pencil marks and a pencil that is a pain to sharpen, buy. Everyone else, stay away. Absolute junk.

1.0 out of 5 stars Easily the worst pencils I've ever used September 7, 2011

By Robert G

I had our office supplier order me a box of these pencils through Staples (because my favorite Black Warrior pencils were nowhere to be found in their catalog), and these are easily the worst pieces of garbage I've ever used. The cheapest of the cheap wooden pencils would work better than these. I know I'm echoing a couple other reviews but these are the killer points:

- doesn't sharpen to a real point in an electric pencil sharpener
- the point snaps off after only a few words of use
- entire pencil feels like one of those fake rubber pencils that you get at a joke shop
- eraser is fairly ineffective

I really love the idea of using recycled tires for these, but it's a great idea gone horribly, horribly wrong. If I could give this product 0 stars, I would.

2.0 out of 5 stars Meh August 26, 2011

By Allen Smalling TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

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This review is of the Ticonderoga RENEW Recycled Pencils, #2, 10 Pencil Pack (96220). While the prospect of an American-made pencil embodying about 30 percent recycled content (mostly old ground-up auto tires) has promise, that promise has not yet been fulfilled.

First of all, there is no way these pencils are anywhere near a #2 in depth of shading! The pencils themselves do not say "No. 2" but they do say "HB," which is supposed to be about the same thing. I compared the RENEW to several other pencils: the more conventional Mirado Black Warrior and the iconic Dixon Ticonderoga (yellow-barrel); and a third, relative newcomer, the Ticonderoga "EnviroStik" which is similar to a yellow Ticon but does not use paint on its cedar barrel. The Mirado, the yellow Ticon, and the slightly more "green" EnviroStik all left satisyingly dark pencil "lead" markings. The RENEW pencil left a harder and MUCH lighter shade, like a mechanical drafting pencil or a pencil for architects and engineers, at least a no. 3 and probably a no. 4. Don't take a standardized test with this pencil until you know it will work!

PROS: Made in USA;
-- About 30 percent recycled content, mostly old car and truck tires;
-- Round rubber barrel is not bendable or pliable but slightly soft to the touch (yet not sticky), unlike hexagonal or laquered barrels.

CONS: Not a no. 2 pencil as publicized (see above);
-- Difficult to sharpen. Despite instructions, I had to use an electric sharpener to begin with just to get the pencil to the point where I could expose the tip and bring it to a usable point with a manual sharpener (can the shavings be good for any kind of steel sharpening blade?...);
-- Pencil is black on black on black with black at the end: black graphite tip, typical of such a pencil, becomes very dark to see when next to black wood (or is it rubber?) surrounded by black rubber barrel. Even the eraser is black, probably an affectation because good modern pencils use non-latex or plastic erasers that are usually off-white or light gray. The traditional pink, yellow or orange (or more modern green or black) colors are added to the eraser. Why not let the eraser go "au naturel" and avoid one extra chemical pollutant as dye?
-- Higher cost. These pencils are sold in boxes of six or ten and unit cost as of the time of this writing is around $0.50+ per stick; compare (all non-sharpened) Dixon Ticonderoga yellow barrels at about fifteen cents, EnviroStiks at about twenty-five to thirty cents, and Mirado Black Warriors at about thirty to thirty-five cents per unit. These are high trim lines from their respective companies, and lots of six dozen of them OR lower-quality-range pencils from the same manufacturers drive the cost down much further.

SUMMARY: These pencils are a little embarrassing. I don't feel right throwing them away but I feel a little dread each time I pick one up because they just don't hack it in terms of acting like a standard no. 2 pencil. Of the half-a-box I have not sharpened, I intend to give one each to several people as an interesting idea of what the American pencil industry is trying to do to go green, and let them judge for themselves how successful that effort has been up to now. I plan on buying no more unless or until price and viability get much more in tune with the market. FILA, are you listening?

Meanwhile, ground-up rubber tires make for great sandals and low-impact playground equipment. Read more ›