O'BON notebooks and bagasse

O'BON now offers A5 and A6 notebooks. These have great designs including our fruit and wildlife series art. They are extremely attractive, and these notebooks are receiving rave reviews. Orders are extremely good. But, what I wanted to mention about these notebooks is our paper.
The paper is not recycled, but rather comes from the pulp and fiber of sugarcane. This is called bagasse. Many environmentalists know this word and know about this paper. For others, bagasse might be a new word. Bagasse is the byproduct left over when sugarcane juice is extracted from the sugarcane plant. The leftover fiber is easily converted to paper.
So, our bagasse notebooks fall under the reuse and not the recycle idea of the 3Rs. From an eco-friendly standpoint, bagasse is great. So little energy is required to grow sugarcane and to turn the pulp into paper. Less energy, less pollution, no toxic chlorine to whiten the paper - sounds great doesn't it? You can go here to learn more about bagasse and its wonderful qualities.

A Pencil that doesn't break!!!!

Many pencil users are in disbelief about O'BON claiming that our pencils don't break. Now, we are not saying that they never break, but it is damn hard to break the lead in an O'BON pencil. We ask you to do the SMASH test.
The SMASH test involves taking a sharpened O'BON pencil and a wood pencil in one hand. Make sure they are sharpened. Then smash both the pencils on the edge of a table. Don't hit the point, but the body of the pencil. Smash it repeatedly - hard. I mean hard. Now wiggle the point. Still intact, probably both pencils seem to be ok. Now sharpen them.
Test Results:
The O'BON pencil lead is not cracked and works fine. The other pencil lead is cracked and the point wiggles and easily come out when pulled.

How is this possible?
Many think that the O'BON doesn't break because it is cushioned by the newspaper. This is not the correct answer. The O'BON pencil is made by wrapping old newspaper 36 times around the graphite. The graphite is sealed in - airtight. There is no air gap inside, so when the pencil is smashed on the table or drops on the floor, there is no vibration inside the barrel. Wood pencils are made with two slates of wood, grooved for the lead and glued together. There is always an air gap - an air grap allows vibration inside the pencil against the fragile graphite. So, snap, crackle, pop!
Another reason why we claim our pencils are "the world's greatest pencil."