Believe it or not, some offices still use pencils and paper to communicate. Those that do often find that they have an abundance of waste paper and a lack of usable pencils. This brilliant solution takes care of both problems at once by using waste paper to create brand spanking new pencils. It’s called the P&P Office Waste Paper Processor, and it’s designed to provide low-cost writing implements from office waste.

The machine uses a relatively simple procedure to recycle your old papers into writing instruments. You fill up its compartments with pencil leads and glue, then feed a piece of paper in and the paper is wound tightly around the lead while glue is dispensed to hold it all together. Shortly after you put the paper in, a new pencil pops out.

The pencil chute also works as a pencil sharpener, presumably after making an adjustment somewhere to activate that function. The pencils produced by this unusual machine are all unique; the design depends on what was on the paper that’s fed into the gadget.

It’s doubtful that making pencils from old paper would actually save any money or energy over, say, recycling paper the standard way and just buying new pencils for pennies each. But for classrooms and offices that use both pencils and paper like crazy, having a handy way to take care of both problems simultaneously could be a welcome change. The P&P is just a concept for now, but given the fact that recycled paper pencils are already being sold extensively it seems like only a matter of time before this machine becomes a reality.