Something I see occasionally on reddit and Bluesky’s fountain pen feed is an idea that fountain pens are better for the environment than regular pens. The idea is that you can just refill one pen over and over again and use it for years rather than throwing away disposable pens. I do encourage reusability, but I think it’s overblown as a benefit.
First of all, the number of fountain pen fans who own dozens of the things pretty well offsets any ballpoints you have from the landfill. That’s before you consider that each fountain pen is more materially intensive than a ballpoint.
The other issue is that ballpoints are actually very frugal with their ink. A standard Bic Cristal (aka biro) can produce over a kilometer of line. A fountain pen uses a greater volume of ink to write far less. Oh yes, and using the fountain pen also means that you are responsible for the bottle(s) of ink to go with it.
There’s not nothing to this. You can reduce your consumption a little bit with fountain pens. But only a little. I encourage you to both try out cool pens and to care about the environment. But there are much better ways to make an impact than by trying to combine them.