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Podcast: レアジョブ英会話 Daily News Article Podcast
Episode: From paper to pencils: one couple’s mission to make education greener
Description: Inspired by techniques used in Asia, a Serbian couple, Dragan and Slavica Markovic, decided to change their careers and create pencils from old newspapers.
New Pen makes its eco-pencils from graphite, recycled unsold and old newspapers, and edible, locally sourced, corn starch glue. Graphite is the only raw material the company procures abroad.
“Manual labor dominates in our manufacturing process,” explains Slavica. “We start by cutting newspapers into equally sized strips and then we unfold the strips and hand-paste the graphite core into them,” she adds while demonstrating the process.
In order for New Pen to be financially sustainable, Markovics had to b...