Massachusetts Block

Pencils are useful as long as there’s enough of the shaft to grip. When one has been sharpened so many times that writing is no longer easy, you bin it, right? What if your pencil could have another life after this one? Mario Bollini is chief technology officer at a Cambridge-based off-road wheelchair startup called Grit. In 2012 he was a student at MIT. He was part of a seven-person team in a mechanical design class that was assigned to come up with a sustainable commercial product. Their brain child was a pencil that could be planted. The pencil is made of sustainable PEFC or FSC-certified cedar wood (meaning that new tree is planted for each one harvested) with organic clay and graphite at its core. Where you would normally find an eraser, there’s a biodegradable capsule of non-GMO herb, vegetable or flower seeds. Today their humble idea is a $2 million business called Sprout.