Year 2, Week 16 Results: .7 oz of plastic waste. Cool music video.

Why oh why do kitties like to chew on plastic? Arya had X-rays today. She's healing well but has to wait a couple of weeks to get the pin removed from her leg. Feisty girl. Broken bone didn't stop her from jumping up on top of the refrigerator after she got home. A few more weeks of cage, I'm afraid.

News: Take Back The Filter campaign in the NY Times today! Michael was excited to be photographed by the NY Times this weekend while I was away at a meditation retreat. Can you find little black kitty Soots hiding in the photo?

Stay tuned after the plastic tally for a music video that was sent to me today to bring awareness to the problems of plastic in the oceans.

All new plastic waste:

• 3 plastic envelope windows. Notices from Financial West Group, AT&T, & Kaiser Permanente. There were a few solicitations from organizations this week, too, but I sent them back requesting to be removed from the paper mailing list.


• 1 outer wrapper from a case of Instinct canned cat food. Maybe we could get away with just feeding Arya the outer wrapper since she finds it so delicious. Nom nom nom.

Enjoy Micah Wolf's "One by One" music video which was created with the help of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation.


 

 

Brita Subvertisement: a gift that dropped into our laps tonight!

Please don't let me interrupt the conversation happening on the previous post. I've been reading your comments, even though I don't really have time to respond right now. But I just had to jump in and tell you about a wonderful gift that the Take Back The Filter campaign received today.

First, have you seen the Brita filter ads discouraging bottled water that go "X minutes in/on the.... Forever in the landfill"? For example, a woman on a treadmill with a disposable plastic water bottle that goes, "30 minutes on the treadmill. Forever in a landfill." If you haven't, it might be worthwhile to check them out here.

First, I am not disparaging Brita's campaign. If it's helping to slow the sales of bottled water, I am all for it. But as you know, the plastic Brita filters are also not recyclable, which is why we started the Take Back The Filter campaign to urge Brita to create a way to recycle the filters, as the original Brita company is already doing in Europe.

(Wouldn't it be nice if Brita would make a public announcement that they plan to have a take-back program in place by a definite date? Hint to Brita PR people who might be reading this blog.)

Well, today, independent videographer Jeph Foust of Studio Freshh Audio Video Storytelling gifted us with a brand new "subvertisement" that he and his wife Dorothy put together this morning in support of the campaign. It's already up on YouTube. You can view the YouTube version embedded on this page, or you can visit Studio Freshh's blog to view a higher resolution version.



This video was a complete surprise. While I was at home this morning, taking my shower, feeding the cats, watering my plants, Jeph and Dorothy were at work creating this beautiful gift for our campaign. Of course, it's going to go up on the Take Back The Filter web site this weekend when I do an update, but I just couldn't wait to let you all know about it. Wow. I'm just so grateful and amazed at how our actions can ripple out into the world.

So feel free to forward the video on, embed it in your web page, e-mail it, stumble and digg and whatever it is that you do to let people know about cool things. AND please leave a comment on the YouTube site in support of the campaign!

Then continue with the awesome conversation that's been going on since yesterday. Clif, I laughed at your sleep comment because, in fact, that's exactly what I'm trying!
 

 

Taking a little blog break

Just when all kinds of exciting things are happening, I'm feeling under the weather (physically) and need to recharge and refocus. So, I'm going to take a little blog break until next week. I know, I teased you on Sunday. Don't worry. I have a fun post up my sleeve. But it will have to wait.

Last Monday, Ideal Bite chose the Take Back The Filter campaign for it's Daily Bite and a few days later Grist published an article about us. Well, we doubled our petition signatures in one week! That rocks, but the extra attention also means extra work right now.

And remember the new Carnival of Trash? It started on Almost Mrs. Average's Rubbish Diet blog in July, moved on to Mrs. Green's My Zero Waste in August, and lands here at Fake Plastic Fish on September 15th. So I need to scramble to scare up some trashy posts. Want to contribute? Write a post (or recycle one you've already written) on waste: reducing, reusing, recycling, refusing, rethinking, um... rotting... any other trashy R's you can come up with... and submit using the Carnival submission form or email me at beth [at] fakeplasticfish [dot] com by September 12. And for this month's carnival only, I'll accept posts even if you don't have a blog! I'll make one for you and put it up. So email me your thoughts on waste (Don't waste your thoughts!) in a coherent form and be a blogger for a day.

What else? Oh, exciting things happening with Green Sangha. Events and board meetings and planning, oh my. If you're in the Bay Area and would like to find out more, let me know. We have an event coming up.

And work. I am, after all, an accountant by day, and it'nearing the end of the fiscal year of one of the companies I work for. Gotta focus. Gotta work. And gotta get through my email.

I read an inspiring quote yesterday that's been a big help. Maybe you've already heard this one. Reportedly, Gandhi said, "Today is going to be a busy day. I must meditate twice as long." Or something like that. There are various versions on the web. I plan to take the concept to heart.
 

 

CRRA: They know how to do a conference!

As I mentioned, I had the privilege of presenting the Take Back The Filter campaign as part of a panel on zero waste grassroots activism at the conference of the California Resource Recovery Association this past Wednesday. I'll tell you more about the presentation itself in a second. But first, I need to gush a bit about how the waste was handled at this conference, vs. the Blogher conference I attended a few weeks ago, and how easily other organizations could adopt this model for their gatherings.

Granted, CRRA is all about zero waste. It's the whole point of the organization, after all. But so what? Just because other organizations might not cite waste reduction as their purpose for being in existence doesn't mean they can't make it one of their values and strive for zero waste at their gatherings. So, that said, here are a few things I saw that made me smile:

The requisite recycle/compost/trash stations throughout the hotel:



Water stations in every meeting room with actual glasses and no bottled water in sight. There were (unfortunately) bowls of plastic-wrapped hard candies. I wonder how many people actually took them.



Amazingly, there were even compost bins in the bathrooms for paper towels!



At the front registration desk was a box for returning the plastic nametag holders to be reused, as well as a white board tallying how much recycling, composting, or trash the conference has generated over it's 4 days and the total diversion rate, which by Wednesday was an impressive 94.9%.



And by the way, the lunch was served on durable tableware with cloth napkins. There was not a disposable anything in sight. I was told there were 800 registrants at this conference. (Blogher had 1,000.) So, it is possible to feed a large number of people sustainably without resorting to disposable boxes, whether those boxes are compostable or not.

Our presentation itself went really well! Here's the description from the conference brochure:

Working Together Toward Zero -- Grassroot Outreach Efforts/Coalitions With National Impact

In Carbonopoly, whatever card you select, collaboration is the key. To pass Go and to collect a functional future, coalitions, grassroots efforts and the new media — social networking websites like YouTube, Myspace, Facebook, as well as email and even cell phones — are some of the best ways to implement change in your community.

* Sierra Club National Zero Waste Committee, Ann Schneider,
* Clorox/Brita - Take Back The Filter, Beth Terry
* Zero Waste, the "New Media" and The Success Of The Story Of Stuff, Portia Sinnott, LITE Initiatives/Waste Reduction Project
* Zero Waste Los Angeles, Reina Pereira, City of Los Angeles
* Moderator: Stephanie Barger, Earth Resource Foundation

Each of us had about 15 minutes to present the work that we have been doing with a question/answer period at the end. I wish I could tell you more about it, but I was so nervous -- about presenting and also about my kitty -- that once it was over I promptly forgot the whole thing. Kinda like my wedding day. Fun and exciting and I wanted to throw up. Can't wait to do it again! (Present the campaign, that is, not get married.)

Plastic tallies for last week and this week coming up Sunday night, barring anymore unforeseen disasters. My sister and her husband are coming from Maryland to visit, so I may not post a lot next week either. But I do have at least one guest poster coming up, so stay tuned. And if anyone else wants to fill in with a guest post, let me know. I'd be happy to take a little break.

Clif? Are you listening?
 

 

Take Back The Climate

I've been asked to present the Take Back The Filter campaign (urging Clorox to take back and reuse/recycle used Brita water filter cartridges) as part of a panel at the California Resource Recovery Association's (CRRA) annual conference next week. I am excited to have the opportunity to share the campaign with this audience, and when initially asked, wasn't at all nervous about speaking: I've been talking about not much else for the past 3 months!

Not nervous, that is, until I found out that the theme of the conference is CARBONOPOLY: Climate Change Is Not A Game We Can Lose.

Oh dear. I know about zero waste. I know about the problems of plastic. I know why I don't want Brita filter cartridges to continue to be landfilled or incinerated. But I hadn't related the issue to climate change. In fact, I actually knew very little about global warming except that we're all supposed to use less energy, buy fewer things that need to be shipped, and purchase locally to avoid fuel costs. I've been on the Low Carbon Diet with some friends for several weeks now. But still, I hadn't ever thought about the connection between recycling and global warming. What the heck was I going to say to this group of industry professional?

Thanks to Ann Schneider of Sierra Club's Zero Waste Group for referring me to a fantastic report called, "Stop Trashing The Climate," a joint effort among the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Eco-Cycle, and Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance, which was published in June of this year. This report describes the multiple ways that waste affects our climate, some obvious, and some that may not immediately come to mind.

First, of course, there are the gases produced by landfills and incinerators. These gases are the direct effect of dumping or burning our waste. According to the report, "Landfills are the largest source of anthropogenic methane emissions in the U.S., and the impact of landfill emissions in the short term is grossly underestimated -- methane is 72 times more potent than CO2 over a 20-year time frame." But what about methane captured for energy? At the Hay Road landfill that I visited with Janice Sitton last January, we were told that the methane from the landfill is captured. But according to the findings of the Stop Trashing The Climate report, "The portion of methane captured over a landfill's lifetime may be as low as 20% of total methane emitted."

And incinerators emit not only CO2 but also nitrous oxide (N2O), a greenhouse gas that is 300 times more potent than CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere. In fact, the authors of the report recommend that "Existing incinerators should be retired, and no new incinerators or landfills should be constructed." But what about filters on incinerators that trap the gases and other pollutants?

Here's where we come to the main point of the report, the indirect results of landfilling and incineration that trapping the gases and other discharges from landfills and incinerators doesn't address: "Wasting directly impacts climate change because it is directly linked to resource extraction, transportation, processing, and manufacturing."

The more materials we send to the landfill or incinerator, the more materials must be extracted in order to replace them. And transported. And processed. And every step along the way uses more energy and produces more greenhouse gases than reusing or recycling the materials we already have.

In the case of Brita filters, that means more drilling for oil to make plastic and all the problems associated with that process. It also means transporting the oil, usually from places that are very far from where the oil will be used. And then processing the oil into new plastic pellets. And then shipping the new plastic. Then creating the new plastic filters. And then shipping the filters.

If Brita filters were designed to be reused instead of trashed, many, many greenhouse gas-generating steps in the process could be avoided. And even if, due to regulatory impediments related to the purity of plastic that comes into contact with drinking water, the filters themselves can't be reused, Clorox's development of a way to recycle the materials would still slow the need for more oil and creation of new plastics for other products.

It becomes clear to me that folks who criticize this campaign, or any other extended producer responsibility campaign, on the grounds that it takes energy to ship the used products back the manufacturer are not taking into consideration the environmental costs of creating brand new products to replace those that are trashed.

Of course, there are other major environmental costs to creating new plastic which I haven't addressed in this post, since the focus here is on global warming. I discussed some of them (including harm to the marine environment) in my post, "Plastic is made from oil." But the new (to me) information from the Stop Trashing The Climate report both heartens and saddens me. The link between waste and global warming re-energizes my commitment to source reduction and recycling and gives me an additional argument in support of the Take Back The Filter campaign. But the information also grieves me to think of one more way that we are trashing our world.
 

 

"Take Back The Filter" takes on "Bay to Breakers"!

(Click photo to see larger view.)

Well, I put out the call, and Tanya and Christa volunteered to help me, dressed as a BRITA filter, get across San Francisco. They came over Saturday night, along with my friend Mark who pretty much majored in costumes and makeup in college, to work on costumes and signs and eat pizza. (BTW, we ordered pizza from Rustica on College Ave and requested it be delivered without that little plastic thing in the middle that keeps the lid from sticking to the cheese. And you know what? The lid and cheese did just fine without that little plastic thing.)

Here's a link to the full article on the Take Back The Filter site.

And here's a link to more photos from the day.

Along the way, dese frat guys with some kine beer machine begged me to be da first water filter to do a "full extension." Wow. That sure was tempting. But I was on a mission and politely declined their generous offer.

Gotta run. Gotta finish up my work and get home so Mark and I can put the finishing touches on our Amazing Race application video. Life in the Fake Plastic Fish tank is never boring.
 

 

Dare me to dress like a BRITA filter and walk across SF?

This could be me at this Sunday's SF Bay to Breakers because, you know, I have a Barbie Doll body and a giant BRITA filter cartridge in my living room. It could be me if I can get at least one volunteer to walk the 12K (7.65 miles) with me, hold my water bottle, and pass out flyers to the cheering crowds. I'd love to have a whole team of people walking with us and wearing signs that say "www.takebackthefilter.org." But it will only take one confirmed volunteer to get me to actually do it.

Why can't Terrible Person walk with me? Why, because he is running the Bay to Breakers, attempting to break his personal awesome record time of 56 minutes last year. Michael trained. Beth did not. Michael will be finished in under an hour. Beth will be sweating in a cardboard costume for over two, probably. But there's karaoke at The Mint afterwards. And if that's not incentive enough, I just don't know what is!

Don't everyone offer at once!

Have you all signed the petition? We've got over 4,200 signatures at this point, and people have been mailing us used filter cartridges from all over the country. Organic Consumers Association wrote a great blurb about the campaign in their latest newsletter and another well-known environmental organization is preparing to send a letter to Clorox.

For more updates on the campaign, please check out our news section: http://www.takebackthefilter.org/search/label/news, where you can find out more about the call we got from Clorox shortly after the campaign began.

So can I get a volunteer?

BANANA UPDATE: It's looking like Sunny is probably going to be the winner of the contest to find out the reason for the sticky plastic on the stems of organic bananas. She found a link that says the plastic is there to prevent black mold. Regular bananas are dipped in a fungicide which kills mold, but organic bananas are not. Hence, the plastic. Before I declare her the official winner, though, I'd like some confirmation. So I sent an email to Dole tonight to find out about the plastic on their bananas. We'll see if they confirm what she found out.

(I know a lot of people have said it's so checkers can tell the difference between organic and non, but that just doesn't sound right to me. The organic bananas all have stickers on them that say they're organic.)

Okay, gotta get back to working on my costume!
 

 

Announcement: Phone meeting with Clorox tomorrow!

I haven't posted in a few days. Have been feeling under the weather (as opposed to over the weather? Over the rainbow?) and in between coughs, sending emails to folks to sign the Take Back The Filter campaign petition.

Good news: Just got an email from a representative from Clorox and scheduled a phone meeting for tomorrow at 8:30 Pacific Time. As I write this, we've collected 184 signatures on our petition. It's a great start, but I just know we can do better. If you haven't signed yet, now's the time. Can we get 500 by tomorrow morning???

I don't care if you are not a current Brita customer. You could be in the future if they would take care of their waste, right? And I'm not requiring your email address or even home address (although those are helpful to us to have.) Just name, city, state, zip code.

Sorry to hound you. By next week, I'll be back to my regular plastic-blogging self. And tomorrow I plan to announce the winners of the two children's books. But for now, please help by signing the petition and forwarding it to everyone you know!

Thanks. You guys rock. Now stop rocking for a second and go sign!
 

 

Brita: Take Back The Filter campaign has begun!

Okay, remember all my posts about how frustrating it was that Brita filter cartridges can be recycled in Europe but not in the U.S.? And how we had our water tested and found it perfectly fine without plastic water filter cartridges? Well, giving up water filters was a fine decision for us here in the SF Bay Area where we have some of the best water in the nation. But it's not a great solution for folks in other areas of North America that may not.

If you'll recall, I set up a recycle_brita Yahoo! group to plan strategy for a campaign to urge Clorox, the company that owns Brita in North America, to develop a similar Take Back Recycling Program for Brita cartridges here. Now, after several months of writing to Clorox and planning our strategy, I'm happy to announce that the Take Back The Filter campaign has officially begun. Join us in asking Clorox to:

1) Redesign its Brita filter cartridges so that the plastic housing can be refilled rather than discarded each time the filter is changed.

2) Provide a take-back program, such as the one that exists in Europe, so that used cartridges can be returned to the company for recycling.

3) Create a system for the cartridges to be dismantled and the components recycled/reused domestically rather than landfilled, incinerated, or shipped overseas.

Please visit the new web site: http://www.takebackthefilter.org for complete background information and to take action.

What are we asking you to do?

1) Sign the petition at www.takebackthefilter.org.

2) Send me your used Brita filter cartridges. I have set up a mailbox specifically for this purpose. Or, if you live in the Bay Area, you can email me to arrange pickup. Instructions are at www.takebackthefilter.org. At some point, we'll deliver them all to Clorox (whose corporate office is just down the street from me in Oakland) to make a strong, visual statement.

3) If you're feeling really motivated, please write a letter to Clorox. A sample letter is also included at www.takebackthefilter.org, of course.

4) And finally, spread the word. Tell everyone you know. Collect their used cartridges and ask them to sign the petition. We even have a sample e-mail at at www.takebackthefilter.org for you to cut and paste.

If you have a blog, please use the following code to paste this badge onto your site:

<a href="http://www.takebackthefilter.org"><img src="http://www.fakeplasticfish.com/takebackthefilter/images/take_back_the_filter_badge2.gif"  width="160"></a>

Even better, write a blog post and encourage your readers to sign the petition and send us their filters. Wouldn't it be amazing if a truly grassroots campaign like ours could help create change in a major corporation like Clorox?

So who is this "we" I keep referring to? We are Beth, Seth, Juli, Becky, Tom, Nicole, Barb, Margaret, Susan, Cat, and others who joined the recycle_brita Yahoo! group, wrote letters to Clorox and, when Clorox's responses were less than encouraging, created this campaign. You can also read Clorox's form letters to us at www.takebackthefilter.org.

Why am I not giving you more info in this post and why am I not linking to specific pages on the site? Because I really, really, really, really hope you will go to the site and browse around and check it out. It's taken many sleepless nights, but I'm hoping it will be worth it.

Do I believe that getting a company to recycle a few (actually millions, but still) water filter cartridges is the biggest environmental challenge we face? Heck no. But I believe in the principle of Extended Producer Responsibility (which Seth brought to my attention), and this is my contribution towards creating a world in which companies consider the entire life cycle of the products they create, rather than simply pumping out more and more stuff and allowing it to pollute the planet at the end of its useful life.

I wish you could see me bouncing in my chair. I'm so excited to have this campaign finally sprung on the world. Can't wait to find out what happens!
 

 

Questions and requests for Brita users in U.K. and Central Europe

04/14/2008 Update: If you've reached this page because you want to know how to recycle Brita filter cartridges in North America, please visit http://www.takebackthefilter.org for more information about the campaign to urge Clorox (owner of Brita in North America) to develop a take-back recycling program for these cartridges!

I'm still trying to find out why the North American Brita Corporation will not take back and recycle their used filter cartridges like the European company does. The North American Brita corporation claims that the cartridges themselves use a different technology. That may be true of the On Tap filters, but from photos online, the classic pitcher filters look just the same as ours. Would any reader in the U.K. be willing to send me a classic pitcher filter so I can compare it with the U.S. version? Sending the box and instructions would be really helpful, too. I will pay for the cost of the filter and the shipping. We can do it via PayPal or any other way you'd like.

It does, however, appear that the OnTap faucet cartridges, which I believe are only sold in Central Europe and Asia, are different from ours. In fact, this looks like a better design to me, as the entire housing is not part of the disposable filter. I gather these are not available in the U.K., right? Would someone in a European country that uses these types of filters be willing to send me one of them with the box? Same as above. I will reimburse.

And I'd love to hear from anyone living in Europe who recycles their Brita cartridges. Can you please let me know what country you're in, what type of filter you use (faucet or pitcher and what model), where you take it to recycle, and just what your experience has been using these where you live. I'm trying to gather as much information as I can to present to the North American company.

I'm not planning on having too many more posts about this issue on Fake Plastic Fish. As I mentioned before, I created a Yahoo Group for anyone who wants to look into it further. But I thought tonight this would be a way to gather some info from folks in Europe who are not part of that group.

Thanks! You can contact me directly via email if you don't want to comment. My email address is beth [at] fakeplasticfish [dot] com. (Does it really help to write it out like that? I get so much spam, I wonder if it even matters at this point!)
 

 

Brita, Green Sangha, Recycled Clothing, 2 Clean 2 B Green, Composts & Landfills & Muddy Shoes, oh my!

04/14/2008 Update: If you've reached this page because you want to know how to recycle Brita filter cartridges in North America, please visit http://www.takebackthefilter.org for more information about the campaign to urge Clorox (owner of Brita in North America) to develop a take-back recycling program for these cartridges!

I've been working on so many other projects this week, I didn't have time to post yesterday, and I barely have time to post tonight. So here are a couple of things I've been doing and also a couple of posts on other blogs that I think are just great:

1) I received enough interest in a possible Brita cartridge recycling campaign that I created a Yahoo Group to discuss the issue further and get feedback on whether or not to proceed. Here's the URL for the Yahoo Group if you'd like to read more or participate:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/recycle_brita/

2) I've been working on Green Sangha's Rethinking Plastics web page. Here's the link. If you're in the Bay Area and would like to get involved, please check it out.

3) National Geographic's Green Guide has an excellent, eye-opening article about what happens to donated clothes, surprisingly entitled What Happens to Donated Clothes?

4) Wise Bread has a great post called Our Obsession to Clean is Making Us Trashy. This is a web site about saving money, and often (although not always) green living and frugality intersect in its articles.

5) Yesterday, I visited a local landfill and commercial compost facility to see for myself what happens to our garbage and the food and yard waste we put into our green bins. I'll be writing about this field trip later.

6) I have to jump on the Yay China! bandwagon (And also Yay Australia!) for their plastic bag ban. Now, if only they'd stop accepting our plastic waste.

7) And one more thing... Next week I'm flying to Hawaii to visit my parents for a few days (and hopefully get my blow dryer fixed.) Are there any Fake Plastic Fish readers in Honolulu (besides my dad) who have tips about local farmer's markets, organic restaurants, other "green" must-sees and must-dos? Please feel free to comment or contact me via e-mail. My e-mail address is in my profile.
 

 

Take back the Brita filter campaign?

04/14/2008 Update: If you've reached this page because you want to know how to recycle Brita filter cartridges in North America, please visit http://www.takebackthefilter.org for more information about the campaign to urge Clorox (owner of Brita in North America) to develop a take-back recycling program for these cartridges!

I use Google Analytics to show me where Fake Plastic Fish's traffic comes from, and sometimes it's fun to look at the Search terms people have used to find this blog. Going through the list tonight, I found these 81 different related combinations. It's a long list. Feel free to scroll down fast.

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Wow. These are all actual queries typed by people into a Search Engine. Many of them were used by multiple people. But they don't represent all the people in North America trying to find out if their water filter cartridges can be recycled. No. These are ONLY the people who also happened to click on the Fake Plastic Fish link that came up on the search list. How many other people are out there trying to find out how to recycle their water filter cartridges and coming up empty-handed?

The point of this exercise is that I'm trying to gauge how much interest there would be in a campaign to urge Clorox, the company that owns the North American division (including Canada) of Brita, to develop a recycling program for the cartridges.

First, a few facts for those unfamiliar with this issue:

• The Brita company was founded in Germany in 1966.


• In 1992, Brita introduced the first recycling program for filter cartridges. The cartridges are processed at Brita's plant in Germany, where the components are dismantled and reused. Read more about the Brita recycling process here.


• In 2000, the entire North American division of the company was sold to the Clorox Corporation, headquartered in Oakland, CA. (FYI: I incorrectly stated in a previous post that this sale took place in 1988 based on an entry in Wikipedia. Won't be getting info from that source again.)


• Now, while the cartridges from the European company are still collected and recycled, the Brita cartridges from the U.S. and Canada are not. In June of 2007, I sent an email to Brita customer service asking why the American cartridges are not recycled when they are in Europe, and I received an unsatisfactory reply. So I wrote a follow-up email, and received another unsatisfactory reply, stating that the filter cartridges in the U.S. use a different technology than the European ones, but giving no other details.


• In December of 2007, Clorox purchased Burt's Bees in an attempt to enter the "green" market. In a press release in October 2007, Clorox Chairman and CEO Donald R. Knauss states, "With this transaction, we're entering into a new strategic phase for our company, enabling us to expand further into the natural/sustainable business platform. The Burt's Bees® brand is well-anchored in sustainability and health and wellness, and we believe it will benefit from natural and "green" tailwinds. It's in an economically attractive category with a margin structure that will be highly accretive to Clorox. Combined with our new Green Works™ line of natural cleaning products, and Brita® water-filtration products, we can leverage Burt's Bees' extensive capabilities and credibility to build a robust, higher-growth platform for Clorox."

My plea to Clorox is this: If you'd truly like to help the planet by entering the "green" marketplace, you could first begin by "greening" the products you already produce. Providing a take-back recycling program for your water filter cartridges would be a great step, especially considering that the model technology already exisits!

So why am I focusing on Brita rather than other water filter companies? First of all Brita has the #1 market share of pour-through filter cartridges in the U.S. and Canada. It's the #1 faucet-mount filter in Canada and the #2 faucet-mount filter in the U.S. (I don't know who is #1. This information comes from page 14 of Clorox's 2007 Annual Report.)

Second, the recycling infrastructure exists within the European branch of the company already.

And third, Clorox is obviously making a bid to appeal to environmentally-conscious consumers at this time. It would be nice for them to put their money where their mouth is.

So, with this information, I'd like to take a little poll here to find out how much interest there would be in putting energy into such a campaign.

RESIDENTS OF NORTH AMERICA ONLY PLEASE.

 

Week 10 Results: 5.6 oz of plastic

04/14/2008 Update: If you've reached this page because you want to know how to recycle Brita filter cartridges in North America, please visit http://www.takebackthefilter.org for more information about the campaign to urge Clorox (owner of Brita in North America) to develop a take-back recycling program for these cartridges!

In solidarity with my guy Michael, who left on a jet plane today with his TSA regulation zip-lock bag of liquids and gels, I packed up my plastic waste in a zip-lock type bag that I happened to acquire this week. He's got a conference to attend for a couple of days, and then he'll be joining me in Anaheim as my friend David and I attempt the Disneyland Half Marathon on Labor Day.

Crimany! I've run exactly 4 times since my surgery on June 11. It will be interesting to see if I'm still alive to blog about plastic in a week after dragging my untrained self 13.1 miles through the happiest place on earth. If so, I'll probably have some interesting things to share about plastic in Mickey's world.

So, here's the tally for week 10:

Non-recyclable items used this week but purchased before the plastic project began:

• 8 Refresh Endura single-use eye drop containers (#4 plastic).


• 1 San Francisco Silent Film Festival laminated pass & neck cord. I found this while cleaning out my backpack this week.


• 1 Brita filter cartridge. As I've mentioned before, the filters are encased in a disposable plastic housing. But, with Michael gone and time on my hands, and no one to stop me, I decided to do a little further hands-on research. I used a hand saw to cut through the plastic and reveal the cartridge innards.
  
  
  As you can see, in addition to the housing, the carbon filter has two endcaps, also made of plastic.
  
  My question is this: Why do these cartridges need a disposable housing? Wouldn't it make more sense to sell a permanent housing that you would open to insert a cartridge consisting of just the carbon filter with the endcaps?
  
  That is