Pentonic built a Durga idol from 13,000 recycled pens — then will recycle it again

Pentonic, the writing-instrument brand of pen maker Linc Limited, wanted a presence beyond ordinary pandal sponsorship at Durga Puja, Kolkata's most powerful public and cultural setting — and a way to show that a product made from recycled plastic has a life beyond a single use.

Build the goddess herself out of the product: a 5.5-ft Durga assembled from 13,000 recycled-plastic Pentonic pens — dismantled after Puja and recycled into new pens.

Artist Chandra Nath Saha (Tilak) conceived and built the idol — about 5.5 ft high, 4.5 ft wide and 3 ft deep — from roughly 13,000 Pentonic pens and 13,000 refills made with recycled plastic. It stands alongside, not in place of, Tridhara Sammilani's traditional idol: the pratima keeps its customary immersion ritual, while the pen sculpture is dismantled separately and its materials recycled into new pens.

A first-of-its-kind recycled-pen idol ran through Durga Puja 2026 at one of Kolkata's best-known pandals, with the material's circular journey — pen to artwork and back into a new product — as the brand's demonstration.

At Tridhara Sammilani, one of Kolkata's celebrated Durga Puja pandals, Pentonic — the writing-instrument brand of Linc Limited — presented a Durga idol built from approximately 13,000 Pentonic pens and 13,000 refills made with recycled plastic. Conceived and created by artist Chandra Nath Saha (Tilak), the roughly 5.5-ft sculpture brings an everyday object into the visual language of Bengal's most celebrated festival: thousands of individual pens assemble into a single representation of Maa Durga.

The installation is a dedicated artwork positioned alongside the pandal's main idol, not a replacement: the traditional pratima follows its customary immersion ritual, while the pen creation stays out of the river. At Puja's end it is dismantled separately, with the materials recycled into new pens — a tangible loop from product to artwork and back.

Both makers framed the work as a perception shift. 'When thousands of them are assembled together, their individual identity changes and a larger image begins to emerge,' said Saha, who let the material dictate a different approach to sculpture. Linc managing director Deepak Jalan: 'the significance lies not simply in the scale of the installation, but in the journey of the material, from a writing instrument to a work of art, and back into a new product.'

Within the crowded Durga Puja canon the mechanism is distinct: the idol is literally made of the sponsor's product, then reverts into it.

Specific, checkable details: named pandal, named artist, 13,000 pens plus 13,000 recycled refills, dimensions, separate dismantling plan.

The circular commitment (no immersion, recycled into new pens) is a concrete, follow-up-able plan, not a slogan.

On-record quotes from both the artist and Linc's managing director.

A circular-economy story lands harder when the product plays the lead: pens become a goddess, then become pens again — the material's journey is the campaign.

The idol was presented through Durga Puja 2026 at Tridhara Sammilani. Per the plan, it is dismantled outside the immersion process and its pens and refills recycled into new Pentonic pens, which Linc's managing director framed as proof that a recycled-plastic product 'can have a continued life beyond a single use or occasion'.