"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!
 

 

Naughty kitties pass the test, as does our drinking water!

I was surprised how easily the kitties went into the box two weeks ago. The blue plastic box that I got from a very nice person on Freecycle. They were so quiet in there, I had to check a couple of times to make sure I hadn't imagined putting them in. Good thing they get along with each other. We will need to get another cat carrier for when they are bigger and can't both be stuffed into the same box. Freecycle or Craigslist. No new plastic for these cats!

So we went to the vet and got shots and blood drawn. Well, they did. I just felt their pain from a distance. And today we got the results. No toxoplasma gondii for these babies. Their poop is certified flushable, as is their litter! And pregnant women are safe in my house. Hurray! We're still using the Swheatscoop litter, although I'm not crazy about the smell. I do sprinkle baking soda into it to absorb odors. I've heard that pine litter is good. But I really do want something that's certified flushable so I don't have to make decisions about what kind of bag to gather it in and whether to landfill it or find some way to compost.

And to anyone who thinks we are using too much water by flushing their litter, we don't have kids. So I think we're allowed this one. (Wow. That was a little snippy of me.)

Oh, and speaking of snippy, Arya has been destroying my legs trying to climb me like a tree. Thanks, David. So I asked the vet to show me how to clip their nails, and now they're safe for a while. Then, I went out to find my own kitty nail clippers, and guess what. They all come packaged in mondo plastic blister packs! No way! So I posted an ad on Craigslist for cat nail clippers and got one person who offered us his used clippers for free (which Michael picked up for us on Saturday) and about 10 other people who advised me to just use people nail clippers on them. So I guess I'll try both ways and see which works better.

Oh, there was one guy who wrote back, "do not clip the cat's nails!!! give them a scratching post, and wear long sleeves." Um... no. They have a scratching post. I do wear long sleeves. And I am a bloody mess. They're indoor cats. What's wrong with a little clipping? We'll see if I still feel this way the first time I have to do their nails myself.

Now, Look at this face. Doesn't she look innocent? Don't be fooled. They are rascally kitties, and I need your advice. What can I use to keep them from chewing electrical cords, eating my plants and knocking them over, and the most worrisome thing, messing with the CFL lightbulbs in table lamps? Soots in particular seems fascinated by those swirly mercury-containing time bombs.

I've seen the bitter sprays sold in pet shops, but of course they all come in plastic bottles. Anyone have a recipe I can make myself? I read the ingredients of one of them... rosemary, sodium bicarbonate, and water. But I couldn't figure out the proportions and it just ended up leaving a baking soda film on my plants. Help!

Oh, and in other un-cat-related news, our water is certified drinkable right from the tap! I bought one of those Culligan test kits from Ace Hardware and found that the levels for chlorine and other contaminants was very low. I sent a sample to the lab to be tested for lead, and that one came back clean too. We are just testing so well today! So that solves our plastic water filter issues. We just don't need one at all.

Of course, I recognize that there are those in other areas who don't have such great water and do need a water filter. First, please have your water tested to make sure you need a filter in the first place. If you do, a water filter uses less plastic than all the bottles you might otherwise be buying. But this is why I am promoting a campaign to get North American Brita to recycle their cartridges. Some people have to use a filter and shouldn't have to toss all that plastic into a landfill. Right?
 

 

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.

 

Target, Multi-Pure, my Cupboards, and the Perils of PVC

By now, many of you have heard that after a national campaign by the Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ), Target has agreed to systematically reduce its use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic (aka vinyl) in products and packaging it carries in its stores. If you haven't heard this news, you can read the full press release here. Blogger LifeLessPlastic wrote a letter to Target to show her support for this action, and I have done the same. It's always a good idea to let companies know when we appreciate the things they do. Here's a link to Target's online contact form if you'd like to send your own message.

Coincidentally, I had my own little PVC panic this past week when I discovered that the tubing used in my new Multi-Pure counter top water filter system, which I bought in place of the Brita we had been using, is made from virgin PVC.


As I wrote on October 29, I was already somewhat disenchanted with Multi-Pure because of the volume of plastic bubble wrap in which the unit and filter cartridge were wrapped. But it wasn't until the unit was installed and working that I actually read the fine print and discovered the more serious problem of PVC used in the product itself.

When I called Multi-Pure to address this issue, I was told that the tubing had been tested by NSF and found not to leach anything harmful into the water. However, the rep was unable to confirm whether phthalates such as DEHP, the chemicals that are the biggest worry, were included in the list of possible contaminants for which to be tested. But regardless of whether or not this particular tubing is leaching anything harmful into my water, I decided to send the unit back anyway.

So what's the big deal about PVC? And if the tubing's been tested and found not to leach, why send it back? Here's a rundown of the problems of PVC:

1. PVC is the only major plastic that contains chlorine, so it is unique in the hazards it creates. During production, PVC plants can release dioxins which harm workers and community members who live nearby. According to pvcinformation.org, residents of Louisiana, which is home to half the PVC production facilities in the USA, have been shown to have much higher concentrations of dioxins in their blood than the average U.S. citizen.


2. The plasticizers used to make PVC soft contain carcinogenic phthalates which can leach from the plastic, especially when used in children's toys and other products that may find their way into children's mouths. In fact, many hospitals have replaced the PVC tubing and IV and blood bags they use with less toxic alternatives.


3. According to ecocycle.org, because so many different additives are used to make PVC, recycling the plastic is extremely difficult, and any PVC bottles (#3 plastic) that make it into the recycling stream can contaminate and ruin a whole load of #1 bottles.


4. When incinerated, PVC forms dioxins, a highly toxic group of chemicals that build up in the food chain. When landfilled, PVC poses significant long-term environmental threats as chemical additives can leach into groundwater.


5. Greenpeace says that in a house fire, fire-retardant PVC will smolder for long periods of time rather than burn, "giving off hydrogen chloride gas long before visible signs of fire appear. Hydrogen chloride gas is a corrosive, highly toxic gas that can cause skin burns and severe long-term respiratory damage." For this reason, the International Association of Firefighters supports alternative materials to replace PVC.


6. In fact, according to Greenpeace's hierarchy of plastics, PVC is the very worst, even worse than Styrofoam! For a more in-depth analysis of the problems associated with PVC, please read Greenpeace's article, "The Poison Plastic."

Whether or not the tubing in the Multi-Pure system actually leaches pthalates into my water, I don't want to support the production of a material that is so harmful to humans and the environment in general. So this morning, I shipped the Multi-Pure unit back to the company.

And then tonight, after reading that PVC cannot be recycled, and realizing that I had included several #3 Act fluoride rinse bottles in my recycling in the last few months, I went through my cupboards and refrigerator to see if there were any other PVC culprits still lurking in the house. Sure enough, I found four of them:


#3 PVC bottles look very similar to clear #1 PETE bottles. In fact, many manufacturers have switched to #1 plastic as an alternative to PVC. The only way to tell is to look at the number on the bottom of the container. #3 means PVC. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to tell when other, unlabelled products are made from PVC. These can include children's toys, shower curtains, window blinds, flooring, pipes, house siding, insulation, roofing membranes, protective pipes for electricity and telecom cables, casings for electronics, refrigerator gaskets, power cords, carpets, furniture, the inside of screw caps, shoes and boots, purses and luggage, raincoats, T-shirts with plastisole prints, packing tape, vinyl records, the covering on ring binders, strollers, garden furniture, tarps, car interiors, and more.

So, what do we do with PVC that we already have? The National Geographic Green Guide article, "How To Handle Vinyl," recommends either disposing of it at a hazardous waste facility or sending it back to the manufacturer and letting them know that PVC is an unacceptable material for them to be using. For the four items I found tonight, I think I'll go on a research mission and see if these products are still being sold in #3 bottles. (Act fluoride rinse, by the way, is now contained in #1 PETE.) If the bottles are no longer #3 plastic, I'll just toss these current containers into my hazardous waste bag for later. But if the products are still being sold in PVC bottles, I'll send these back to the manufacturers with a nice note.

Now once again, I am without a water filter. What to do? Well, how about something I should have done a long, long time ago: testing the water to see if we even need a water filter in the first place! Last week I purchased a Culligan water test kit at Ace Hardware and did some preliminary home tests. Turns out, our chlorine and chloramine levels are much lower than I expected! I mailed a water sample away this morning to be tested for lead. If that test comes back okay, I think we'll drink our water unfiltered and save a whole lot of money and plastic. Imagine drinking water straight from the faucet again, just like we did as kids. What a nice idea.
 

 

Week 19 Results: 4.6 oz of plastic

It's 3am, so I'm just going to try and make this short and sweet. Here's the weekly tally:

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

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


• 1 cap from a bottle of Sunera canola oil. More info on this below.


• Plastic from a blister pack of Duracell AAA batteries. As we use up disposable batteries, we're switching to rechargeables. We still have some packages of AA's, C's and D's left.


• 1 Brita faucet filter cartridge. This is the last one. We've switched to MultiPure. More info on that below.


• 1 wadded up ball of packing tape. Found while cleaning out a closet.

Recyclable items used up this week but bought before the project began:

• 32-oz bottle of Sunera canola oil (#1 plastic). Most of our oil now comes in glass bottles. We use a lot of olive oil and have recently begun using Salute Sante grapeseed oil, which comes in a metal can, in place of canola oil. Grapeseed oil has a very mild flavor, like canola oil, but a much higher smoking point.

And that's all the old stuff. Now for the new plastic waste.

• 1 wrapper from a block of Springhill Cheese Company raw white cheddar.


• 1 wrapper from a block of Loleta Cheese Company organic sharp white cheddar.


• 1 plastic cork from a bottle of Boissonneau Chateau Moulin de Ferrand Bordeaux Blanc. I have 4 bottles left. Once they're gone, I'll try to find only bottles with natural cork stoppers.


• A bit of plastic from around the stems of a bunch of fair-trade organic bananas.


• Shrink wrap from around a MultiPure water filter cartridge and plastic Ziploc bag of parts.
  
  Actually, there was more plastic than these two pieces, but I sent it back to the company with a note. The story is that I purchased the MultiPure filter kit in order to save plastic and also because, unlike Brita, these cartridges filter out the chloramine that is used to purify our water here in the East Bay. I figured I'd save plastic because first, the filter cartridge only has to be changed once a year, as opposed to every 2 months, and second, the only plastic on the cartridge are the two endcaps, unlike Brita in which the entire housing is made of plastic and is disposable.
  
  Unfortunately, the filter and cartridge arrived encased in 20 square feet of fresh, new bubble wrap! I called MultiPure to find out if in the future the cartridges could be shipped without bubble wrap and was told that this was impossible. So I found out the contact info for the person in charge of making those decisions and mailed the bubble wrap back to her with a letter. I'll post the response if and when I get one.

Well, that's it. To bed!
 

 

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 how the Multi-Pure system is put together, which Scott from Least Footprint recommended to me this weekend. The housing sits on the counter or under the sink, and the cartridge is a carbon block with two plastic end caps. The cartridge only needs to be replaced once a year, resulting in much less plastic waste than with the Brita System.
  
  I also found out this weekend that Brita USA is actually owned by Clorox, that environmentally responsible manufacturer of such products as Clorox bleach, Liquid Plumr, and Glad plastic trash bags. So another reason the cartridges are recyclable in Europe and not in the United States could be because they're not actually made by the same company, and the company that does make them in the U.S. doesn't give a crap!


• 1 Brita cartridge blister pack. (See above.)


• 1 baggie from a ChampionChip timing chip. This is the thing you put on your shoe that keeps track of where you are during a race. This one was from the SF Bay to Breakers in May, and I happened to find it while cleaning.


• 1 plastic wrapper from something I don't remember.

Recyclable items purchased before the plastic project began:

• 1 ground black pepper container (#1 plastic) & lid. Now that the ground pepper is used up, I've switched to buying whole peppercorns in bulk and grinding them in a pepper mill. I'll either reuse this container or recycle it in Daly City.


• 1 Safeway Organics applesauce cup (#7 plastic). I have 1 more of these left to use up and can recycle the cups at work in Daly City.

Now for the new plastic waste:

• Plastic corks from 2 bottles of Boissonneau Chateau Moulin de Ferrand Bordeaux Blanc.


• 1 zip-lock type bag which contained a Jessica Prentice SF bay Area Local Foods Wheel. What a little dilemma I had this week. The Local Foods Wheel was recommended to me by a woman I met at the farmer's market last Sunday. It shows what foods are in season in the Bay Area during the year. What a great idea! Yet, when I went to purchase the Local Foods Wheel, I found it packaged in a very large zip-lock bag. So I e-mailed Jessica Prentice to ask about her decision to use this kind of packaging. She wrote back that she wanted to use biodegradable materials but hadn't been able to find a bag in the right size. I've offered to help her find a more sustainable type of packaging. We'll see what happens.

That's it. I didn't buy any other plastic last week.

Hey, I love all of your comments, and it will be especially nice to get them this week while Michael is away.

 

Brita water filter follow up

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 received the following e-mail from Brita yesterday in response to my 2nd e-mail to them:

From: "Brita Consumer Services" brita@consumerreply.com
To: beth@coloringthevoid.com
Subject: Reference Number: 4959167
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 16:48:09 -0500

Ms. Beth Terry
[address omitted]
Reference Number: 4959167

Dear Ms. Terry,

Thank you for writing back.

The technology used in the filters in some countries is different than what is used in the USA. This is why our filters are not considered recyclable. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Again, thank you for contacting us.

Sincerely,

Hal Frankford
Consumer Response Representative
Consumer Services

-----------------------------------------------

I'm sorry. This is not an acceptable answer to me. First of all, I'm not sure I buy it. Second, if it's true, what could possibly be the reason for having different technologies in different countries?

Still searching for a different water filter solution...
 

 

Water Filters & my letter to Brita

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!

So I really need your input on this one! What method of water filtration do you use and why? Are you able to recycle the filter? One of the items in my plastic waste pile from last week was a very heavy used Brita water filter cartridge. What to do with it? I checked Brita's web site and found out that in Britain, they have a recycling program. However, there was no mention of recycling on the U.S. web site, so I sent the following letter and received the following response:

Note sent on web site contact form: http://www.brita.com/contact_form_us.php
Re: Brita On Tap System
Questions/Comments: I understand that Brita filters can be recycled in Europe. Can they be recycled in the US? Is there any address to send them to?

Thanks,
Beth Terry

-----------------------------------------

June 27, 2007
Ms. Beth Terry
[Address Omitted]
Reference Number: 4959167

Dear Ms. Terry,

Thank you for contacting us about Brita On Tap Filter - Regular. We always appreciate hearing from our consumers.

We appreciate your interest in our product, as well as your concerns about the environment. The BRITA water filter system's ion-exchange resin removes heavy metals from your water by an actual exchange; that is, hydrogen ions are released into the water to replace the ions of such potentially hazardous substances as lead and copper. Because the BRITA filter is designed to trap these contaminants, it is not considered recyclable using available technology. Nonetheless, we do share your concerns, and we make every attempt to use product formulations and packaging which will be safe and effective, while at the same time producing a minimal environmental impact. I would like to take this opportunity to describe some of the actions we have taken.

At BRITA we recognize that recycling and solid waste reduction are the most viable long-term solutions for our solid waste problem, so we have tried to focus our efforts in t