Brita to take back filters!
By Karina | November 19, 2008
Have y’all heard the news? Beth over at Fake Plastic Fish posted yesterday that Brita, in cooperation with Recycline, will start to take back and recycle the filters for their pitchers. This is such exciting news! You can read the full press release here. The filters will be collected at Whole Foods markets starting in January 2009, or they can be mailed directly to Recycline.
First, it is SO COOL that the Take Back The Filter gang was able to work towards this goal. What an amazing coup! We’ve been following their campaign (for example, there was this amazing video) for a while, and I’ve been making phone calls and saving filters with everyone else. I know there were a lot of other people who wrote letters and saved their filters, and it’s amazing to see this level of activism take hold and be so productive.
Second, how about that Clorox, hey? We’ve posted about eco companies that sell out (i.e., Burt’s Bee’s and Clorox) and the new green cleaners that Clorox has been offering, but I feel like the Brita recycling is the first real and serious indicator that Clorox is dedicated to sustainability. I know I came off as kind of skeptical about the green cleaners, but I have to say: Clorox, I give you huge props. Thank you for going the extra step towards true environmental practices here.
Beth says that we should all take a moment and write a thank you note to the head dudes over at Clorox. I heartily support this as well, and plan to send mine out shortly! Check out her post for addresses and more information about this awesome development.
How do you feel about the recycling campaign? Does this make you feel any differently about Clorox?
Topics: Activism |
First off, GO BETH!!! I’m amazed and impressed and so excited! You’ve shown us what dedication to an environmental cause can do– thank you!
To your second question, Karina– no, this doesn’t make me feel any differently about Clorox… ok well, maybe a scooch. You know, this plastic is still just going to be downcycled into lesser products, not upcycled or even just recycled– which doesn’t help the big plastic problem we really face. I’m not sure what the real solution is, but this still means an awful lot of plastic is still being produced and will hit the landfills at some point in the not-distant future. And now that there are rumblings of polypropylene also perhaps being a leachy yicky plastic… we might have bigger (plastic) fish to fry.
in the “sell out” article I linked to above we quote the NYTimes as saying “Along the way, Clorox executives say, they plan to learn from unusual business practices at Burt’s Bees — many centered on environmental sustainability. Clorox, the company promises, is going green.” - I guess it’s really happening!
I was totally skeptical at the time, but you know, Clorox is making their own Tiny Choices towards sustainability.
Thanks for the reminder about tiny choices– sometimes I have to be reminded. :)
when you consider how many people decisions like this must go through to make it happen, and how many people could really care less, this is a huge step!
i don’t have a brita filter but will definitely consider one if my tap filter kicks the bucket (and it is well on its way). here’s an idea for clorox to take this a step further in the future: accept filters from your competitors (like pur)!
Thanks for reminding us how to comment to Clorox. I suggested that they broaden the collection points to make it easier for people who do not shop at Whole Foods, either by choice or because it is not in their neighborhood, and do not want to take the time to send them to Recycline, to deposit the filters — for example: Costco (which sells the systems), Walgreens and other retail stores with lots of traffic. A step in the right direction though.
It’s a tiny step and also a huge step. It’s tiny because, as you said, the plastic is downcycled, new plastic will be used to create new filters, and we still don’t know about the safety of polypropylene, which Preserve is going to make into foodware.
But it’s a huge step that a group of individuals could band together and convince a huge company like Clorox to even go in that direction. The bigger you are, the harder it is to change direction, right? I do think Clorox was already moving into the green market with Green Works and Burt’s Bees and Filter For Good. But this recycling deal is different from those. They don’t make money from it. It’s all PR.
Okay, maybe they assume their market share will increase as people opt for a recyclable filter over a non-recyclable one. That, in fact, was one of the arguments I put to them. But regardless of whether they recycled or not, they’d still sell Brita filters. Bottom line is that they didn’t have to do it, but they chose to. So bravo to them!
and bravo to you for your hard work! it’s so rare to see a success story like this coming from individual action campaigns, congratulations again!
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