Connecting naturists in an eco-friendly way!

Background

Ball pens in the Indian market come with a "use and throw" model today. Once the ink inside the refill empties, one has to throw the pen as refills are no more available separately in the market. Technically, refills cannot be called refills anymore.

Why do pen manufacturing companies do so is not exactly clear. For a new pen worth Rs. 10, couldn't they price the refill at a little lower, say Rs. 9? Wouldn't people be purchasing the refill to save Re.1? We tried looking for articles on this but could not find any.

Some numbers
20 years ago, or may be even more recently, one would simply buy a new refill, put it in place of the earlier refill. Assuming the pen and refill is entirely made of plastic and the body constitutes 50% and the refill constitutes the remaining 50% of the plastic, for simplicity, one would be able to reuse 50% of the plastic in the form of the body. Upon finishing two refills, plastic saved would be 25%, upon finishing 3 pens 33% and that would continue to increase in the long run. 

The idea

If a naturist company/initiative/association/businessman/NGO could come up and just own manufacturing of standard size refills of pens (which fit a popular brand), and they could establish a viable supply chain, would people who care for the environment buy those refills instead of throwing away the pen? Will such a refill of decent quality be feasible of manufacturing for such an organization? The refills need to be available with a minimum price margin less than the pen and should also be readily available, may be in regular shops or somewhere. The supply may need to be well regulated, because of smaller market size.  

A local naturist community may come handy in regulating the supply. Considering the initial launch of the project is made only within the naturist community and only naturists knew about those refills. The refill company gets an estimate of the total number of naturists in the country or a zone from the chief coordinator/head of the naturist community. This is done by clubbing numbers from the individual states/cities. After the manufacturing of the refills, the supply is then made to the chief coordinator/head. From here, the refills are passed on to smaller zones/states and then to cities. From there, the refills are made available to the individuals. To further streamline the process, individuals may procure the refills periodically, like monthly or quarterly, during a local naturist meetup. 

To summarise, here would be the benefits -

• This could be an ice-breaker for newbie naturists to meet the local leaders and be more connected with the community.
• The naturist community being a close-knit and small sized community, it would make estimates for refill supply easier.
• The naturist community could be a potential pioneer in bringing reuse of pen refills and thus be known for a good cause outside the community.  
• Unlike some other projects, where the idea is to use a completely different wooden pen material, here the same pens and refills will continue to be used, and thus users may easily adopt it. 

Challenges

• Supply of refills on a smaller scale may be costlier and feasibility needs to be studied.
• Due to additional logistical challenges leading to non availability of refills readily, people may resort to regular pens usage.

Other environment friendly projects

World's First Zero Plastic Pen