Recycling Brita Filters
By Karina | April 28, 2008
I was checking out some of the Tiny Choices link-love out there (thanks, fakeplasticfish, for the shoutout!) and saw in the same post a post-script about a petition to recycle brita water filters. I am so excited!
P.S. Have you signed the Take Back The Filter petition yet? I know, I know you want to know how the phone meeting went. Patience, Grasshoppers, as Crunchy Chicken once said to me. In a nutshell (almond): The Clorox rep said some things and I said some things. Then we hung up. Then, the Take Back The Filter group discussed the things that were said. I composed an email response to Clorox, which I sent off Sunday night. We are waiting to hear back on the answers to our follow-up questions. Will let you know more, hopefully soon. No jumping of guns or other loud shooty things, okay? As Kip said to Napoleon, “Peace out.”
I can’t wait to hear more about this conversation, it is all so suspenseful and mysterious.
I posted a little bit about the Brita filters here and how they can’t be recycled, when I answered a Q&A on whether or not Brita pitcher plastic will leach. So I was really excited to sign the petition last week for recycling Brita filters in the US as well. What’s also very cool is that they are collecting used Brita filters to create a “strong visual statement” — I will be sending mine along as soon as I get around to changing it!
Also, I didn’t realize the Brita is owned by Clorox - and as I pointed out in my post about Clorox Green Works, the line between greenwashing and genuine environmental change is very thin and at times hard to see. This is a sterling opportunity for Clorox to prove that they’ve made a commitment to the more environmental route that they espouse with their Green Works products (and by their ownership of Burt’s Bees). As Take Back the Filter says on their background info page asking why they’ve chosen to focus on Brita Filters:
By purchasing Burt’s Bees, developing GreenWorks cleaning products, and creating the FilterForGood campaign, Clorox is making a bid to appeal to environmentally-conscious consumers at this time. Taking responsibility for its plastic waste would be a great way for the company to “walk its talk.”
Alternatively, if you’re more technically inclined (and maybe have some room to make a mess) you might be interested in this stop-gap measure: Instructables has directions for refilling the Brita filter with fresh activated carbon in the comfort of your own home.
What do you think - will you be sending your Brita filters over to Take Back the Filter, or have you sworn off Brita pitchers entirely?
i will sign the petition, for sure. and i’ll do my best to send back the filters, too. i think the long term plan for our house is to get rid of the Brita and install a nice whole-house filter system.
I stopped using my Brita awhile back, because I’m just not really sure how effective it is. I like the taste of NYC tap water, and I’m not sure that Brita really filters much out of it. I’d like to start researching a good under-sink filter system, though.
I love the taste of NYC tap! my tap water isn’t bad, but I was spoiled by nyc for so long.
I signed the petition.
I signed the petition, and would love to send my filters, but I don’t use a Brita brand pitcher. If they start recycling filters, I’ll switch brands though.
I realized last night that I don’t have any more brita filters under my sink - so I am at a point where I need to decide what the heck to do about it entirely!
I never used a Brita Filter after being told a urban legend-esque story by and girl in a boutique : she had a friend who contracted calcium eating parasites from her brita filter because all the residue attracts little bacteria and parastic creatures ! Gross ! I never could drink NYC tap either because when i lived there my water came out red and black- so thick that once i filled the tub with it, let it settle and then wrote ” F@#K this place” in the gunk, and it stayed like that for hours. (mind ya , i was a 20 year old punk at the time;) )))……..
I hope that there is a bigger push to make all water filters recyclable. I have lots of filters on my tap and I feel very bad when i change them out and have to throw them away- making more waste for the environment, while trying to get clean water. Sort of an odd oxymoron.
oh, man! the building you lived in in NYC must have really terrible plumbing!
Thanks so much for writing about the campaign!
Just a note to those looking for an alternative filter system. Make sure the tubes are not made from PVC. After giving up Brita, we bought a Multi Pure system, which I then returned to the company for a refund when I realized that the plastic tubing was PVC “the poison plastic.”
Beth
thanks for the tip, Beth! that plastic, it is seriously *everywhere.*
signed the petition, will continue to use brita filters, going to send them back
I signed the petition. I do not use the brita pitcher, but if I did I’d send back filters too.
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