What it is made of, and what we haven't solved.

The barrel is machined from solid aluminium and then anodised, which grows the colour into the surface of the metal rather than painting it on top. That is why the finish does not chip: there is no layer to lose. It is also why the pen can spend years in a bag with a set of keys and still look like itself.

The good part. Aluminium can be recycled again and again without losing its properties, and recycling it uses a small fraction of the energy that making it from ore does. A pen that survives ten years and is then melted down is close to the best case for a metal object.

The bad part. Smelting primary aluminium is one of the most energy-intensive industrial processes there is. If any of the metal in your pen is primary rather than recycled, that energy was spent, and no amount of longevity erases it.

What we do not know. We cannot yet tell you what share of recycled content is in our stock. We have asked our supplier and we have not had a firm answer. When we have one, it goes on this page — and if the answer is disappointing, it goes on this page too.

The twist mechanism is brass, machined rather than moulded. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, it is recyclable with other metals, and it wears in rather than out — the reason the crown still turns cleanly after a few thousand twists is that the parts are metal against metal, cut to a tolerance.

It is a small part of the total weight and a large part of the reason the pen lasts. Where a mechanism fails inside the warranty, we would rather service it than swap the whole pen, and we say so on the warranty page.

Copper mining is not a gentle industry, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. We chose brass because the alternative — a moulded plastic mechanism — would have made a pen that fails in two years, and a pen that fails is the worst environmental outcome on this page.

This is the part of the product we cannot make a good environmental case for, so here it is first and plainly.

Used scrolls go in the general waste. Thermal paper is coated so that heat turns it dark, which is how the printer works without ink. That coating means the paper cannot go in with ordinary paper recycling: it contaminates the pulp, and a batch of recycling can be rejected because of it. Do not compost it either, and please do not burn it.

It is BPA- and BPS-free. The stock we buy is specified free of both bisphenol A and bisphenol S — the compounds people rightly worry about on till receipts. That was a deliberate choice, because these scrolls get read, re-read, folded and carried in wallets for years.

But free of BPA is not the same as recyclable, and we will not let the two blur together. A scroll is safe to handle. It still ends up in the bin.

What actually reduces the harm. Volume. A 1.2-metre scroll is about forty short lines, a roll holds hundreds of lines, and most people are still on their first roll a year in. This is not a receipt printer running all day. And if you would rather use no thermal paper at all, blank ribbon takes a fine-tipped pen perfectly well — the words do not have to come from the printer.

What we are still looking for. A phenol-free, recyclable stock that survives years in a pocket without fading. We have not found one that does all three. If you know of one, please write to us.

SneakPrint runs on a rechargeable lithium-ion cell, charged over USB-C, and holds around two weeks of ordinary use per charge. A rechargeable cell is far better than disposable batteries, and USB-C means no proprietary cable to lose or replace.

Where it has to go. Battery or electricals collection point. Never the household bin, never the recycling bin — lithium cells crushed in a lorry start fires, and they do so regularly. If your collection point wants the cell separated from the device, ask us and we will tell you how rather than have you prise at it.

The fair criticism. The cell is not user-replaceable today. That means the life of the printer is tied to the life of one battery, which is exactly the design pattern we complain about in other people's products. We have not solved it. It is on the list below, and we are not going to bury it in a footnote in the meantime.

The printer is covered by the two-year warranty, battery included. If it stops holding a charge inside that window, it is a warranty claim, not a purchase.

The pen arrives in a rigid card box with a paper-lined tray and a blank card. No plastic window, no foam insert, no moulded tray, no ribbon you throw away in the first ten seconds. The box is meant to be kept — for most people it becomes the drawer the pen lives in.

The outer parcel is cardboard cut close to the box, so there is nothing to pad out and nothing rattling.

Not yet solved. Some of our labels are still plastic-backed, and not every roll of tape in the workshop has been replaced with a paper one. It is a small thing next to a battery, and it is also the easiest thing on this page to fix, which makes it harder to excuse. We are working through the last of it.

Parcels travel by whatever route the carrier chooses, and for long distances that is frequently air. We do not control it, and we are not going to describe it as anything other than what it is.

What we can say honestly: a SneakPen weighs 28 grams and ships in a small box, one consignment, once. Wholesale orders travel as a single consignment rather than dozens of separate parcels, which is one of the few genuinely better things about buying in bulk from us.

What we do not do. We do not buy carbon offsets, and we do not describe any part of this business as carbon neutral. Offsets would let us print a nicer sentence here; they would not change how the parcel travelled.

What we do not know. The emissions of a single order. Working that out properly means measuring the whole chain — metal, paper, assembly, freight, returns — and we have not done it. So we do not have a figure, and we will not invent one.

A short list, so that nothing has to be read between the lines:

• No carbon footprint figure. We have not measured one.
• No certifications. We hold no environmental certification, from anybody, today.
• No recycled-content percentage. Asked for, not yet confirmed by our supplier.
• No offsets and no neutrality claim. We buy none and claim none.
• No recyclable paper. The scroll is not recyclable, and it never has been.
• No sustainable, eco, green or planet-friendly on our packaging or our product pages. The words have been worn smooth.

If you find one of those claims anywhere on this site, it is a mistake rather than a policy. Tell us and we will take it down the same day.

Not promises with dates on them — we have missed enough of those to stop making them. This is the order we are working in:

1. Recycled content, confirmed. Getting a straight answer from our aluminium supplier and publishing it here, whatever it says.
2. A take-back route. Somewhere to send a dead printer or a tired pen so that it is dealt with properly rather than binned. This is the one we most want to exist.
3. A replaceable cell. Designing the next printer so the battery can be changed without a workshop.
4. The last of the plastic. Paper tape and paper-backed labels throughout, including on returns.
5. Better paper. Still looking. See the thermal paper clause for why it is hard.
6. A measured footprint. Properly, once, rather than an estimate we would have to keep defending.

When one of these lands, it appears on this page with the date. When one of them fails, that will appear here too.