There are various things you can do.

Use them as basic level knitting needles.
Sometimes heating / tapping them will get the ink to flow again.
Use them to practice your melting skills - plastic acts much like glass but it takes much less heat.
Purchase refills for them instead of buying completely new pens.
Pens could be used as pegs / bars in homemade organizers.
Use them as straws - make sure to cover the tiny vent hole in the side.
Use them to blow paint blobs around on paper for art.
Various poking uses (planting seeds, holding up seedlings, pushing wax bits into the melted pool of candles, etc.)
Use it as a fine tipped glue quill-like pen.

Lots of ideas out there….

if you got a sringe and filled it with warm water, and squirted it down the end of the ink bit, leave it for a few minutes, and then pour the water out afterwards. That normally works.

Heat the tip of the biro in a small flame (I find a lighter to be ideal) and often it will warm the ink enough to make it fluid again.

A chandelier??

http://inhabitat.com/2007/01/10/bic-ballpoint-pen-chandelier/

I have an elaborate biro (ballpoint pen in the civilized world) that plugged up from lack of use. It has a floating hourglass and weighs a metric ton, and is therefore worth saving. Nothing I tried worked. It was time to weed out any other defunct pens, so I rounded up a dozen or so and started weeding by drawing a line of continuous circles, each in turn. I hadn’t much room, so I kept writing over the same space. I found I had three dead pens, but was able to revive them all easily by scribbling over the ink deposited by the good pens. The ink itself coaxed new life into the three dead soldiers. Result: back to 100% function.

what an interesting idea. will certainly be trying this.

Running pens over glass or a surface such as skin often bring them back to life. If they are actually dried as opposed to just stopping from lack of use, the other options here are better.

I just wonder whethere there is any company that collects them and recycles the plastic bits. There must be millions of old biros thrown out each day and to me it seems such a waste of resources and the putting of unbreakdownable stuff in landfill.

I also feel the same way about marker pens - all that aluminium and plastic just going into landfill.

I have written to various companies and councils about this but never get any reply. I think it is in the too hard basket.

Please email me mbsdb@hotmail.com with your ideas and comments.

I am not in a position to do any research or start a company to do anything about this - so perhaps I should just shut up!

If you run the nib (tip) of the pen against the sole of your shoe it usually starts the ink floeing again; as the rubber of your soul catches the stuck nib and causes it to move thus the pen will work again.

I’ve actually used the spring inside to repair a defunct door latch, but it took some craftsmanship to bend it to the right shape. The kind that are hexagonal tubes are perfect for shooting bits of wadded paper at people (aka spitballs) but enough about my childhood.

• use an empty pen casing to store glass thermometres
• you can use them as vials for small glass beads

I have always though I could saw the outer tubes into beads and make a bead curtain. Never got round to it yet, though!

Here’s a sad one. If you should happen to be into making models of railway carriages with detailed interiors, the sort that used to have armchairs as opposed to bench seats, a section of pen tube, some filler and a fine saw produces a high backed armchair just right for a dining car. And you need lots, cos you’re obsessed, right?

I tried dropping the pen nib first onto my desk and after a few such blows just scribbling with it seemed to work!
Now to try the other 533 pens I bought ten years ago!

i have hundreds of pens at home. when i finally got to sorting out the ones that worked and the ones that didnt work, i had only 5-10 that actually worked. i need something that get the ink flowing again, or if there is a company that takes pens back to recycle.

My mum says to put them on top of heating vents. I have yet to determine if that will work.

The college for the blind in Worcester use dead ballpoint pens to draw tactile graphs (in maths and science etc) for blind people to feel. You need a special kind of paper that retains the lines you draw. You draw a mirror image of the graph/map/etc on the back of the paper, then turn it over and it can be felt.

I believe the college already has a sufficient supply of dead biros though.

As a preventative measure, you could get one or two fountain pens instead and fill them from glass ink bottles which can be recycled. I get them cheap on ebay.

bright plastic pens can be sawn into beads for kids craft projects.

I collect pens of any kind and glue them on My Mercedes Pens Art Car. I also make other art and I am always looking for dead pens. You can always send them my way:):):)

Are you still looking for old pens that don’t work. If you are respone to sjjsunny@gmail.com

Hi, you could use recycled pens in the first place. The pens linked to above are made entirely from recycled materials, and thus I imagine can be recycled again after use.

Does anyone know how recycled pens can be re-recycled?