The Red, White, and Green

It was finally time to change the filter in my Brita pitcher last night, and I was excited that for the first time, I can rescue the filter from a landfill death. In November 2008, the company announced that beginning last month, Brita pitchers and filters can be recycled through a program with recycled household product maker Preserve (a nifty company; I, for one, am a big fan of its recycled/recyclable toothbrush that’s sold at my local Trader Joe’s). According to the Preserve website, the company will recycle each Brita plastic filter casing (No. 5 polypropylene) into new Preserve products, such as the aforementioned toothbrushes, as well as kitchen products like mixing bowls and cutlery. Regarding other materials in the filter–like activated carbon that reduces chlorine taste and odor, as well as ion exchange resin that reduces lead, mercury, cadmium, copper, and zinc–the website states that they “will be regenerated for alternative use or converted into energy.”

That statement–especially the “regenerated for alternative use” part–seems a bit vague. What does that mean, exactly? The best answer I could dig up was a comment posted on Green LA Girl when the news of the Brita/Preserve recycling program was first announced in November. According to FilterForGood, a campaign to reduce bottled water waste: “The details about the internal carbon and ion exchange resin are a little vague because Brita and Preserve are still working toward an exact solution…. Testing for the best method is in progress and we will have more information to announce early next year.”

That being said, at least we know that the plastic part of the filter is definitely going to good use. So, there are two recycling options available. The first–and most convenient–is to drop off the filter at a participating recycling location. Via the drop-off location finder on the Preserve website, I can see that the nearest location for me is a Whole Foods in San Francisco. Since I live in LA, I guess I’m choosing the second recycling option: mailing the filter to Preserve. Preserve doesn’t currently offer a prepaid mailer for the Brita filters like it does for its toothbrushes and razor handles, so it looks like I’ll be collecting filters like some sort of crazy eco bag-lady until I’ve amassed enough to justify the cost (both monetarily and from a CO2 shipping expenditure standpoint) of ground shipping them to the company’s recycling depot in Cortland, NY.

We’ll see how many enthusiastic filter recyclers with no access to a drop-off location end up mailing in their filters. But at least it’s a start. Just a short while ago, there was no recycling program–only a campaign/petition started by the dedicated folks at Take Back the Filter (a hearty congrats and thank you to them on this major accomplishment). And with Brita’s new onslaught of plastic-bottles-are-evil commercials like this one with the tagline “30 minutes on the treadmill, forever in a landfill,” the ball is in our court to keep the pressure on Brita (and other filter manufacturers, since this recycling program is for Brita only) to not be the hypocrite and continue to expand its recycling program.

–Jennifer Grayson

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