Th'Ink well before purchase

I've been getting through alot of writing pads this year as I try to organise my lecture notes and I've taken care to buy as much recycled paper as possible etc. However, I have also gone through my fair share of pens too and its not so easy to find the right pen which in the end will be safe for the environment. I imagine the very best pens are the fountain pens with refillable ink and even better are the ones that dont require you to change the cartridge each time but simply fill the built in ink reserve. In reality though these can be messy and leak all over your work and other belongings so you want a good throw away pen that will last. Now I like my stationary as I may have mentioned in the past and a pen has to feel good when I write with it. I thought I had found it in one of those roller ball types so I made my purchase. You can also rub this ink out too with a special lid so I thought it really was the bees knees and it wrote like a dream....for 3 days...and then was empty! So I took it back and told the shop assistant my problem and she replaced it. It was empty in...3 days! Back I trotted a third time and it was once again replaced and I made sure to check that I got one with a full amount of ink in it. 3 days later it was gone. I hadn't written an excessive amount with it and I had much cheaper throw away pens that had lasted for months. What a waste of money and a terrible job for the environment. That was 3 pens over 9 days that possibly would head off to the landfill. 2 pens thrown out per week essentially. Business is business and I expect companies to make a profit but isn't this kind of wastefulness costing us excessive amounts (to purchase and clean up the waste) both in the shop and landfill and that's before we consider the environmental damage inflicted.

Do you know of any good pens that have done their fair share for the environment, advertise the plastic number symbol on them so that you know you can recycle them or simply a good pen that lasts a decent amount of time? Share your thoughts here.