ECO Staple Free Stapler Review

One of the items in my August Lost Crates box was this ECO Staple Free Stapler, whose tag line is "made for a greener planet." I'm not sure I buy the idea that not using staples will make much of a difference, but I'm all for small steps as well as big ideas so it's worth a try out.

Made of plastic, the Staple Free Stapler stitches the paper together by creating a rectangular hole and pushing the cut-out paper back and through it makes in the sheets. It's a great idea, although not useful for more than 4 sheets of paper at a time. There is no waste paper to clean up, unlike the office 3 hole punch and the tell-tale confetti it leaves behind.



On the back the ECO folks have put a handy guide to how this stapler works, both in pictures and words. I do think the "Made by Humans" tag on the back of the wrapper might be better placed somewhere than right above the "Made in China" line. The latter begs the question of what type of laborers were used and raises questions in the mind about their working conditions, thus taking away from the warm fuzzies you're supposed to feel using this ecologically-sound stapler.



On a corporate level, this makes it partly unworkable if your presentation or whatever is more than 4 pieces of paper. Even Power Point presentations tend to be accompanied by photocopies of the slides, so I'd say this stapler is more for casual use around the office or home than for Board-of-Directors-type meetings. The hole in the pages also makes me thing this might not go over so well for large gatherings: heavy duty photocopiers now have staple options, which is a blessing when you are making 50 copies of a 10 page document.

But it's fun and green, so I'd say the ECO Staple Free Stapler would be a great alternative to using metal staples. Saves on having to run out to an office supply place to pick up staples, and eliminates the question of storing all those metal bars for future use (I tend to misplace mine, then have to buy more).