The Brita Filter Dilemma
Friday, September 19th, 2008
When I first moved to Los Angeles from New York City, I was taken aback by the taste of the tap water. After being spoiled by the refreshingly crisp taste of NYC tap water, I couldn’t bring myself to drink the water in LA, except under dire circumstances. I resorted to purchasing bottled water - large jugs that I would refill at the Glacier water stand in front of the local supermarket or 24-packs of bottled water (yes, shame on me).
I’m not proud of the water habit I acquired in my new habitat and have recently opted to use a Brita filtration system at home in lieu of purchasing bottled water. Little did I know, however, that while I was eliminating a large chunk of plastic bottle waste, I began amassing new plastic waste!
I was unaware that Brita (owned by Clorox) does not have a recycling program in place in North America as it does in Europe, which means that every used-up filter cartridge across the United States and Canada ends up in landfills. The amount of waste resulting from this cartridge pile-up seems quite staggering when you consider the fact that Brita has the #1 market share of pour-through filter cartridges in the U.S. and Canada. It is also the #1 faucet-mount filter in Canada and the #2 faucet-mount filter in the U.S (according to Clorox’s 2007 Annual Report).
Since Brita filters are recycled in Europe through its own private collection and recycling system, it should be possible for Clorox to implement a similar system here, right? So, what can we do?
For those of you that enjoy Brita-filtered water, but are hesitating to throw your filters away into your trash can, check out this organization I found - TakeBackTheFilter.org - and join their campaign to urge Clorox to develop a take-back recycling program. You can sign their petition; write a letter to a Clorox executive; or send in your used filter cartridges that they are collecting to deliver to Clorox en masse at some point in the future. How cool is that!?!
