Take Back The Filter

Brita® and Preserve® Announce Filter Recycling Program

2009-11-14T03:31:00.000-08:00

11/18/2008: The Take Back The Filter campaign is thrilled to announce that Brita and Preserve have teamed up to create a take-back recycling program for Brita pitcher filter cartridges! Read the full press release here.

In a nutshell, beginning in January, folks will be able to drop off filters at Whole Foods Markets or mail them in. Preserve, a U.S. company manufacturing household products from recycled plastic, will recycle 100% of the plastic casing. And the filter material will be regenerated or converted to energy.

Please see our 11/18/08 news item for more details.

Brita tells us that since the faucet mount filters are made from a different type of plastic from the pitcher filters, they are not part of the program at this time. However, Brita and Preserve are continuing to explore options to recycle faucet mount filters and hopes to have a solution in the near future.

What you can do...

~~Sign the petition.~~There is currently no longer a need to sign the petition. Brita has heard our voices and come up with a plan that includes most of the things we asked for. It's a step in the right direction.

Write a letter to Clorox executives.Yes! Please write and thank them for helping us keep our pitcher filters out of landfills and ask if they have plans to recycle faucet filters.

~~Send us your used filter cartridges.~~ Please do not send us any more filters. Hold on to them until January. They will be returnable to select Whole Foods Markets. Or mail them to Preserve.

Contact your local Whole Foods Market and ask the store manager to join Preserve's Gimme 5 program. Each individual store can decide whether or not to participate in collecting #5 plastics, including Brita filters, for recycling. If you'd like to be able to bring your filters back to Whole Foods rather than mailing them in, please speak to the manager at the store near you.

Spread the word! Please do let others know that Brita pitcher filters will be recycled beginning in January and that they should not be thrown in the garbage.

Brita takes back its pitcher filters! Now, what about the faucet filters?

2009-02-02T17:11:00.000-08:00

Friday, January 30, Beth Terry delivered 561 Brita pitcher filters plus 50 Brita faucet/refrigerator filters to Brita representatives at Whole Foods Market in Oakland, CA for recycling.

The 561 pitcher filters will be included as part of Preserve's Gimme5 program, which will also collect other types of #5 plastic (such as yogurt tubs, prescription bottles, and all Preserve products).

The 50 non-pitcher filters were handed separately to Brita's Drew McGowan, who has promised to include them in ongoing recycling research since faucet filters are made from a different kind of plastic from pitcher filters.

In attendance at Friday's event, along with Terry and McGowan, were Martina Wang from Brita as well as Adesina Stewart and Liz Bootz from Whole Foods Market.

Next steps...

1) Check the list of participating Whole Foods Markets to determine if your local store will be participating. If not, please contact the manager of your store and ask him/her to participate in Preserve's Gimme5 program.

2) Write or call Clorox (Brita). Thank them for finding a way to recycle pitcher filters, and let them know we want them to go even further. First, we want to encourage Brita to find a way to recycle faucet filters. And second, we'd like all its filters to be designed to be either refilled or the plastic recycled into new filters.

It's great that Preserve has stepped in to help recycle these filters into new products like toothbrushes and cutting boards. Still, virgin plastic must be used to create new filters. If Brita can come up with a way to create new filters from old ones, the recycling loop will truly be closed. We hope Brita will continue their research into further methods of recycling.

Campaign will hand over 611 collected filters to Brita tomorrow!

2009-01-29T10:24:00.000-08:00

01/29/2008: Thanks to you, we've collected a total of 611 filters that we'll happily hand over to Brita tomorrow morning to be recycled as part of Preserve's Gimme5 program. The handover will take place at 8:00AM PST at Whole Foods Market in Oakland, CA (the new Lake Merritt location.) Local press have been invited to come and witness the event.

Wonder what 611 Brita filters look like? Here's a photo taken back when we had only 581!

Brita has kindly arranged this event for us and are enthusiastic about accepting the filters to kick off the recycling program. Are you interested in witnessing the filter transfer and perhaps taking a few photos? Here is the text of Brita's media alert:

*ATTN: EVENT MEDIA ALERT*
RECYCLING TOWARD A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE:
Brita collects more than 600 filters at Oakland’s Whole Foods Market

WHAT: Earlier this year, Brita teamed up with Preserve, a leading maker of 100 percent recycled household consumer goods, to collect and recycle Brita pitcher filters for the first time ever. Consumers have been asked to drop off used Brita filters at participating Whole Foods Markets, which collect and ship the filters on behalf of Preserve. This program allows Brita consumers to make another positive impact by recycling Brita pitcher filters and thus reducing dependence on bottled water.

Friday, January 30, 2009, Beth Terry, local Bay Area recycling advocate who supports the reduction of plastic waste and plastic recycling, will hand over more than 600 filters collected prior to the program’s launch to Brita and Whole Foods as part of the Preserve Gimme 5 program to collect No. 5 polypropylene plastics. These filters will be among the first of their kind to be recycled into Preserve household products such as toothbrushes, cups and cutting boards.

WHERE: Photo opportunity to take place at local Whole Foods Market in Oakland, Calif. 230 Bay Place Oakland, Calif. 94612

WHEN: Friday, January 30, 2009 at 8 a.m. PT

WHO: Brita Senior Group Manager, Drew McGowan, who manages the FilterForGood campaign and Martina Wang, who facilitated the recycling program will receive the filters on behalf of Brita. Joining Drew and Martina are Whole Foods representatives, Adesina Stewart and Liz Bootz and Beth Terry, local Bay Area recycling advocate.

Visit brita.com for more details on the recycling program.

For my part, I'll just be happy to move these boxes of filters out from under my dining room table!

Please ask your local Whole Foods to participate in Brita filter collection!

2008-12-10T01:04:00.000-08:00

12/09/08: As we announced in our 11/18/08 update, Whole Foods Markets will be collecting used Brita filters for recycling as part of Preserve's Gimme 5 program beginning in January. However, we have recently learned that each individual Whole Foods Market manager can decide whether or not to participate in the program.

If you would like to be able to return your used Brita filters, as well as all other #5 plastics, to your local Whole Foods, please contact the store near you and let the manager know.

Contact info for all stores in the U.S. and Canada can be found here:

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/all/index.php

This program will work best if customers are able to return their filters while shopping rather than having to mail them in.

11/18/08: Brita® and Preserve® Announce Filter Recycling Program

2008-11-17T23:38:00.000-08:00

As promised, here are the details of the take-back recycling program that Brita has developed. Read their full press release here.

1) Collection: Beginning in early January, Brita users will be able to drop off used filters at Whole Foods Markets or mail them to an address which will be provided closer to the start date. [From personal experience, I would recommend NOT sealing them up in ZipLoc bags. This just ends up creating a lot of soggy, wet, not-so-nice smelling filters.]

2) Recycline, dba Preserve, the company that makes recycled toothbrushes, razors, and other household products, will recycle 100% of each plastic filter casing collected into other household products.

3) The filter ingredients, activated carbon and ion-exchange resin will be regenerated for alternative use or converted into energy.

The Take Back The Filter campaign is very pleased with this solution. Of course, we would always prefer to to see the filters redesigned to be reused/refilled. But we understand that that might not be practical. And partnering with Preserve is a great alternative.

When Brita first contacted us back in April, they told us they were leaning on Waste Management to figure out how to recycle the filters. Waste Management is in the collection business. They collect plastic for recycling and sell it off, normally shipping it away to cities in Asia. We wanted the Brita filters to stay here at home where we need green jobs to bolster our economy.

According to Preserve's Earth Efforts page:

Recycline makes nearly all of our products in the United States, working with U.S. manufacturers. This practice benefits our local economy and also reduces the CO2 emissions that would be generated by transportation of products to the United States from other countries. Sometimes we need to extend just beyond the border to guarantee quality and environmentally responsible manufacturing, so the blades for our Preserve razors are produced in Mexico.

Thank you to everyone who got involved in this campaign, sent us your used filters, signed the petition, sent letters to Clorox, forwarded emails, wrote blog posts, and helped in ways we may never know. Brita might have started recycling their filters eventually without our help, but letting them know how important this issue was to so many people certainly ensured that it remained on their radar and that they sought the most responsible method possible.

A huge thanks also to the Sierra Club! Sierra Club, as you may or may not know, already had a relationship with Clorox in helping them to develop their Green Works line of natural cleaning products. So it was natural for our campaign to partner with them to help Brita find the best way to recycle the filters.

What's next?

This site will remain up. If you haven't signed up for updates, please do so. We will let you know further details about Brita recycling. And in the coming days, we will add info on how we can encourage other water filter companies (like Pur) to follow suit.

In January, we will deliver our over 500 collected filters to Brita publicly so that all of you who sent them in can see your filters handled responsibly! And for those who still have filters to send, please hold onto them until January. We will be shutting down our mailbox in a few days.

In the mean time, please send a thank you letter to Brita for the hard work they have done putting this program in place. Clorox is showing itself to be an environmental leader, which might seem unusual for such a large corporation. We'd like them to feel that going green is truly worth it, and to perhaps look at their other product lines and figure out ways to make them more sustainable as well. (I have a few ideas!)

Here's the info for writing to Clorox:

Mailing Addresses:

Mr. Don Knauss, Chairman & CEO
Mr. Drew McGowan

The Clorox Company
1221 Broadway
Oakland, CA 94612

Web Form: http://www.brita.com/contact_form_us.php

11/15/08: Brita to begin take-back recycling program!

2008-11-15T15:45:00.000-08:00

The Take Back The Filter campaign received a call from Brita brand manager Drew McGowan yesterday alerting us that Brita will indeed begin taking back and recycling pitcher filters beginning in January!

Full details on the plan will be released on Tuesday. Please visit the Take Back The Filter site Tuesday to learn where you'll be able to take your filters to be recycled as well as how they will be recycled.

We have no information at this time about recycling of faucet or other types of Brita filters. Please stay tuned...

10/29/08 Campaign Update: NY Times article & filter collection at Green Festival

2008-10-29T23:00:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been over a month since I posted an update, and we've gotten more signatures, more filters, more endorsements, and more press. So, here are the current numbers:

Signatures: 16,003
Filters: 478 from 36 states & DC.

We'd love some filters from Delaware, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, & Wyoming.

National Press: The New York Times included a short piece on the Take Back The Filter Campaign in its Business Section on Monday, October 6: Pressure Is on to Recycle Water Filters, by Mya Frazier. Check it out. Brita's comment is a bit confusing. On the one hand, they say nationwide recycling would be too expensive for any one company to take on. But on the other hand, they tell us that they may begin a test program next year.

Let's hope the test program goes forward and is supported by consumers! We'd love for the filters you've sent us to be included in that first batch. In the meantime, please continue to send letters to Brita urging them to recycle responsibly. Please stress that we want green recycling jobs created here at home, rather than outsourced to Asia.

Write:

Mr. Don Knauss, Chairman & CEO
The Clorox Company
1221 Broadway
Oakland, CA 94612

Endorsement: We're thrilled to receive the endorsement of Food and Water Watch, which has agreed to help collect filters at the Washington DC Green Festival. Please bring used filters to the Food & Water Watch booth. Here are the logistics:

November 8-9, 2008
Saturday 10AM - 7PM
Sunday Nov. 11AM - 6PM

Washington D.C. Convention Center
801 Mount Vernon Place, NW
Washington, DC 20001

Food & Water Watch's Executive Director, Wenonah Hauter, had this to say about the campaign:

Food and Water Watch’s Take Back the Tap campaign advocates for clean, affordable public water for all. We urge consumers to drink tap water rather than bottled water and to support federal funding for public water systems. Choosing home tap water filtration rather than drinking bottled water saves consumers money while reducing waste and greenhouse emissions produced in the production and transportation of bottled water. Drinking tap water also keeps national water resources in local hands, supporting public water systems.

We support Take Back the Filter’s campaign pressuring Clorox to recycle filters responsibly. Drinking filtered tap water should not compromise a consumer’s concern for water quality over his/her concern to reduce plastic litter clogging our nation’s landfills.

I've been asked by several people whether it's better to buy bottled water since the bottles are recyclable while the Brita filters are not. My response: PLEASE STOP BUYING BOTTLED WATER! There is more plastic in 300 water bottles than in one Brita filter. And the environmental impact of bottling and shipping water long distances is huge. We are not advocating bottled water. We simply want a solution that is as green as it can be. And since Brita in Europe has found a way to recycle the filters, we think that Clorox in the U.S. ought to be able to do the same.

Here are all the other web sites and blogs that have either mentioned the campaign or added our badge since the last update:

Babbling
By What Shall We Call Her?
CPSC Action & Education
Garden Supermart: Practical Green Living
Green & Clean Mom
Green Peas
Green Right Now
Green Unlimited
Melodies in Marketing
Ode Magazine
Outside Blog
Peanuts and Stilettos
PieGirl
Plenty Magazine Online
Shaffner Photo
The Daily City
The Day After An Inconvenient Truth
The Organized McTatty
The Overbrook Foundation
Ventnor Permaculture

Let us know if we've missed anyone. If you have a web site or blog, please write about the campaign. We'll mention you in the next news update and link to you on our Blogroll page!

09/21/08 Campaign Update: Viral Video & looking at the bright side!

2008-09-21T18:34:00.000-07:00

I can't wait for you to see the new video that was created in support of the campaign. But first...

The Numbers: As I write this, we've collected 14,866 petition signatures and 348 used filters. What will it take to get to 1,000 filters? How about filters from every state? We're still missing: Delaware, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming. Is your state listed? Send us your used filters!

Update from Clorox: After reading Clorox's 7/18/08 letter (PDF), one of our supporters sent his own letter to Clorox and received an even more positive reply. Written by Clorox CEO Don Knauss, the new letter contains the hand-written note: We do have one option that looks like it may work within the next 6-12 months. Thanks again for your interest. (View a PDF copy of the CEO's letter here.)

The Take Back The Filter campaign is not anti-Clorox or anti-Brita. We are happy that Clorox wants to do the right thing, and we want to help them get there. We also want to commend Clorox for their "Drink Responsibly" campaign to urge consumers to give up bottled water and make the switch to reusable water bottles. This action could help save billions of water bottles from the landfill each year, as well as save the energy costs of bottling and shipping water from one area to another.

Have you seen Brita's "Responsible Water" commercials? If not, you can view all of them here. That said, we are not missing the irony that while using a Brita might save plastic bottles from the landfill, the cartridges themselves remain unrecyclable.

Viral Video: Studio Freshh Audio Video has created a beautiful "subvertisement" based on Brita's own "Drink Responsibly" ads to urge Clorox to recycle its filters "responsibly." The video is up on YouTube as well as a higher res version on the Studio Freshh web site. After viewing on YouTube, please rate it, email it, stumble, digg, or embed it on your own web sites. We want to see this video spread across the Internet!

If you are reading this update in an email, you'll need to click the above links to view the video. Otherwise, you can watch the embedded version here:

The keyword here is "responsibly." We still don't know what Clorox has in mind regarding recycling the filters. Much of our plastic recycling these days is shipped to countries in Asia, where worker safeguards do not exist and whole towns are exposed to toxic fumes from plastic recycling. This Sky News video shows the sad truth about what happens to much of the unwanted plastic that westerners drop in their recycle bins.

If you haven't yet written a letter to Clorox, please do it now. Thank them for the work they are doing to create a greener world and ask how they plan to recycle the filters. Let them know we'd like the filters recycled domestically, as they are in Europe. This will not only prevent the kind of atrocities that we see happening in Asia, but will also create green jobs for us here at home at a time when new jobs are desperately needed. Write to:

Mr. Don Knauss, Chairman & CEO
The Clorox Company
1221 Broadway
Oakland, CA 94612

NY Freecycle Event: Take Back The Filter held its first collection event in NY City last weekend. According to campaign organizer, Juli:

It was just a box at the Freecycle Freemeet in Brooklyn. We distributed some mini flyers and collected six filters. That isn't much, BUT-- raising awareness is the more important point. Once people see that 'someone' is out there making an effort to get filters recycled, it generally clicks with them. It just makes sense. Once you decide to use a filter and move away from plastic water bottles, you really hate throwing those hunks of plastic filter in the trash, and it infuriates you to know that Brita EU recycles while Brita US does not.

Are you doing anything to organize filter collection in your area? Let us know. We'll write about it in our next update. And don't forget, we have a Yahoo Group set up for connecting with others to collect filters.

Here are the web sites that have either mentioned the campaign or added our badge since the last update:

Compete to Conserve
Council of Canadians | London
Design Ministry
The Green Fork
Green Talk
Oly Ost
Peacock Moon
Studio Freshh blog
Erika... with a K...
Maybe Local Vegan!
Retro Housewife Goes Green

Let us know if we've missed anyone. If you have a web site or blog, please write about the campaign. We'll mention you in the next news update and link to you on our Blogroll page!

09/02/08 Campaign Update: 14,100 signatures, 264 Filters & some great publicity!

2008-09-02T21:23:00.000-07:00

Two big articles this week have given the campaign new energy. Thanks to Ideal Bite for including Take Back The Filter in last Monday's Daily Bite and to reporter Ashley Braun at Gristmill for her article, Yakety yak, will Brita take 'em back?

If you haven't read the Gristmill article, please visit the site and weigh in on the poll asking whether you think filter recycling is worthwhile!

Since these two articles came out, we've nearly doubled our petition signatures. Now, we need to focus on reaching our goal of 1,000 used Brita filters. Many new campaign supporters may have signed the petition without realizing that there are several other ways to help out: letter writing, sending us used filters, and spreading the word. Please browse the full web site, which is chock full of ideas: www.takebackthefilter.org.

If you're in the New York City area, you can bring your used filters to Freecycle™ New York City's Back-to-School FreeMeet! (it's not just for students!)

Saturday, September 13, 2008
11am - 4pm
Behind the Old Stone House
(5th Ave b/t Third and Fourth Streets)
Park Slope, Brooklyn

Just drop Brita filters in the designated box at the FreeMeet and they will be sent to the Take Back the Filter campaign in Oakland.

MORE INFO: www.RecycleThisNYC.org/freemeet

Wondering about the theory behind the Take Back The Filter Campaign? Seth Gale, one of the campaign's original organizers, has written up a comprehensive article on Extended Producer Responsibility, the concept that producers should be accountable for the entire life cycle of products and packaging they introduce on the market. Europe has been following this model for 15 years. It's time the U.S. caught up!

As always, we want to thank the folks who have have promoted the campaign on their blogs and web sites. Since the last update, we've been mentioned on:

A Moment of Choice
Apt 403
Care and Conserve
dbs62's Journal
Earth911.org, a great resource for recycling information
Eco-Cycle's Guide to Hard to Recycle Materials (listed under Water Filters)
Everyday Sustainable
Fishlamp
flyingeagle101
GirlieGirl Army
Good Magazine
Greening You
Ideeahs
In Women We Trust
Kale for Sale
My Zero Waste
One Girl Revolution
Plastic is Forever
RockyHot1
That Hamilton Woman
Two Cats and Counting

Sites that have added a link or badge:

Live Green, Wear Black
Natural Health News
Pop Goes Green

As always, if I've missed anyone, please let me know so I can add you to our Campaign Endorsers & Blogroll section.

08/05/08 Campaign Update: Encouraging sign from Clorox CEO!

2008-08-05T19:19:00.000-07:00

Here's a bit of positive news in the Brita recycling campaign. Today, one of our supporters shared with me a letter from Clorox CEO Don Knauss she received in response to her letter to the company. In the past, those of us who wrote letters to Clorox executives asking for Brita recycling received impersonal form letters from Brita employees other than those addressed in our original letters. (See Letter #1 and Letter #2.)

But recently, consumer Sharon Rogers received a response signed by the CEO himself with a personal handwritten comment at the bottom. Here's the full text of the letter. View the PDF version to see the handwritten signature and comment.

Dear Ms. Rogers,

Thank you for taking the time to contact me regarding Brita. We truly value your loyalty to one of our brands. We appreciate hearing from consumers, and I would like to assure you that we share your concerns about the recyclability of Brita filters in the U.S.

It's true that Brita filters are recyclable in other countries, because they have recycling programs for such materials. As of now, the United States city waste management systems are not equipped to collect Brita filters for recycling purposes.

We understand that's not ideal, and we are working with waste management to explore other options, as we are dedicated to sustainability efforts and ensuring customers are happy with our products.

Again, we appreciate your business and your feedback.

Sincerely,

Don Knauss

[Handwritten Note: We are focussed on this issue!]

This is great news, and we appreciate that Clorox/Brita are listening to their customers and intend to make Brita recycling a reality.

If you haven't yet sent a letter, now's the time!

Please write to Clorox CEO Don Knauss and let him know that you are glad the company is working on the issue of Brita recycling and that you'd like to know when we can expect a program to be in place.

Don Knauss, CEO
The Clorox Company
1221 Broadway
Oakland, CA 94612

It's great that they have the intention, and we must continue to urge them to keep the issue on the front burner. Until Clorox is ready to make an official announcement about Brita recycling, we will continue to gather signatures, send letters, and spread the word.

And please continue to send us your filters! Wouldn't it be great if we could deliver them to Clorox at the time that the recycling program is finally announced? Let's all be part of the solution!

Beth

Extended Producer Responsibility

2008-08-05T19:08:00.000-07:00

The Take Back The Filter campaign is very much in line with a broader economic initiative called "Extended Producer Responsibility" (EPR). The term extended producer responsibility has been around for about 15 years, first appearing in German and Swedish policies and law in the early 1990s, but the concept is as old as commerce itself in a free market. Simply put, EPR imposes producer accountability over the entire life cycle of products and packaging introduced on the market.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun to promote the concept of EPR. The EPA’s EPR website, established in 2007, helps to disseminate information about EPR as well as to provide names of non-profit organizations and initiatives in the U.S., such as the Boston-based Product Stewardship Institute, which have begun to collaborate for a shift in U.S. policy toward shared responsibility for waste management between prodcers and municipalities.

How exactly does EPR work? As a policy platform or law, for example, EPR would require a large electronics producer to: limit the amount of heavy metals released during production of a stereo, provide a recycling or "take-back" program for the packing foam and cardboard used to ship the stereo, and develop an internal take-back, or "down-cycling" program, for that same stereo to be transitioned to post-production materials 10 years down the road.

As a guiding principle or law in a free market, EPR has the capacity to shift the burden of waste management "upstream," from overloaded and potentially under-funded municipalities to the original producer of what becomes waste. By requiring producers to cover the economic overhead of waste management, the EPR platform also ensures this "second bottom-line": shared eco-responsibility of the producers and, likely, the municipalities where the products become waste.

In the past 15 years or so, EPR has taken shape as practice and policy in some sectors of many European countries. For example, in Germany in 1993, there were a series of stringent packaging laws passed that required producer take-back of all sales packaging across product lines. Subsequent studies of these German laws have demonstrated wide-spread positive effects on the economy, both in areas of corporate accountability and waste production. Between 1991 and 1998 in Germany, the per capita consumption of packaging was reduced from 94.7 kg to 82 kg, a reduction of 13.4%. In an EPR system, according to many environmental economists, companies begin to develop more products that have a low economic and environmental cost once they reach their waste stage. In addition, it seems that EPR policies help to promote market forces to create new and better concepts for financing the production and transport of products.

In the United States, in the 1990s and 2000s, EPR has been very slow to spread to any regional or national policy-level. Some of this may be explained by resistance from U.S. corporations. There are, however, some companies who have instituted voluntary take-back programs, most likely because consumer demand for environmental stewardship has actually begun to show a measurable impact on market forces. According to an article in April 2000 in Environmental Science and Technology (Volume34, Issue7, p.170-175), a journal of the American Chemical Society, companies currently participating in voluntary EPR programs include Compaq, 3M, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Frigidaire, and Xerox. In addition, Ford and Saturn have begun to take back automobile bumpers, and some carpet companies, such as Interface Flooring Systems of LaGrange, GA, have moved to lease their products and have an extensive system for "down-cycling" once they become unusable.

Since 2000, there have been a number of great public initiatives in the U.S. at the State level, which demonstrate a changing tide in the U.S. towards EPR and product stewardship. One example is the passage of electronic waste (e-waste) bills (see: State e-waste laws), where companies are required to share the economic burden of existing public e-waste recycling programs. This year, in June 2008, New York City became the first U.S. city to pass a mandatory producer responsibility ordinance for electronic waste (Intro. 728, see below). By July of 2009, manufacturers must begin to implement their waste take-back plans and "accept any of the
covered products that consumers want to return."

Globally, there have been multiple large-scale analyses on the environmental and economic impacts of the EPR policy conducted by multi-national cooperatives like the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). Through these efforts, ample evidence has shown that an EPR policy approach can work in two ways: it can relieve the undue burden that municipalities have with waste-management, and it can successfully create incentives for producers to both cut back on material usage and spending and also foster better product design (so-called "design for environment" (DfE) changes).

Joining this excitement of recent U.S. trends toward cooperative product stewardship, Take-Back-the Filter is proud to stand, at the grass-roots level, in partnership with policies like EPR and with organizations like the EPA and OECD. We would like to help promote a shared responsibility for environmental stewardship: we believe that when companies like Clorox, or General Motors, or Dow Chemical Company, or Sony, enjoy the benefits of a majority market-share in their industry, whatever the size, they are also doubly tasked with the responsibility of leadership in environmental protection.

Additional links:

Here is a broad, EPR theory-driven write-up. OECD Report, 2005. (PDF file)
http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2005doc.nsf/LinkTo/NT00000C2E/$FILE/JT00179671.PDF

A more practical analysis by an organization that does work with OECD, called Resources for the Future (RFF) in Washington, DC. (PDF file)
http://www.rff.org/Documents/RFF-DP-06-08-REV.pdf

EPA's Product Stewardship website: http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/reduce/epr/about/index.htm

NYC e-waste Bill: Intro 728. http://webdocs.nyccouncil.info/textfiles/Int%200728-2008.htm?CFID=854439&CFTOKEN=78296164

Seth Gale
July 21, 2008

7/11/08 Campaign Update: 6,700 signatures, 157 Filters. Keep 'em coming!

2008-07-11T21:32:00.000-07:00

The Take Back The Filter campaign continues, as we collect not only signatures and filters but also support from organizations and notice from the press.

In an article on Cnet News.com ("Clorox on Brita cartridge recycling: Not so easy" June 24, 2008), Clorox representative Drew McGowan tells reporter Hanna Sistek, "Our filters are made with carbon. Any impurities that can be found in water will stick to the carbon, which becomes nonusable, which is why it has to be changed.... At this time, there is no way to recycle the carbon."

Yet the original Brita company in Europe does just that. In Brita's own facility, the filters are dismantled, the carbon is cleaned and reused in water treatment facilities, the ion exchange resin is cleaned and used in new Brita filters, and the plastic is ground up and used in new plastic items. All parts of the filters are recycled. To date, Clorox has not provided an explanation for why it can't do what its European counterpart has already been doing since 1992.

The latest organization to endorse the campaign, the California Product Stewardship Council, has written a letter to Clorox asking that question. Read CPSC's letter to Clorox here.

What will it take to let Clorox know that consumers are serious about recycling? We'd love to present them with a minimum of 10,000 signatures and 1,000 filters, including filters from every U.S. state and Canadian province. We're getting there, but it's going to take all of us spreading the word to everyone we know.

Do you have ideas for us? Leave a comment or email beth@takebackthefilter.org.

Additional bloggers and news sites that have written about the campaign since the last update include:

Bugs and Brooms
East Bay Express article, June 18, 2008
Citizen Green
Green Grown and Sexy
Improvilaw
Northern California Recycling Association online newsletter, July 2008
Personal Issues
Rockridge Residents.org
Sustainlane Online Newsletter, June 2008 Edition 59
Sustainlane Take Back The Filter review

Sites that have added a link or our campaign badge:

Gray Matters
Lacey - Journalism Blog
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06/18/08 Update: 6,100 signatures, 94 filters, getting businesses involved

2008-06-18T01:13:00.001-07:00

To date, the Take Back The Filter campaign has collected over 6,100 petition signatures. We've also received 94 filters from 19 U.S. states and D.C. Is your state listed on the sidebar?

Apparently, Clorox is listening. An article in the online magazine Grist this week reported that when questioned about Brita recycling during the recent Sustainable Brands conference, a Clorox rep replied, "We're working on it." However, Clorox has not provided any concrete information to us since our first contact with them back in April. We think they still need a lot more convincing.

So we continue to work on finding creative avenues for getting the word out and expect a couple of print articles this week.

We've also gained support from the business sector, with endorsements from eCycle Group in Southern California, a company that understands take-back recycling programs, and Sacramento-based Synchrosina Creative Services, an organization that appreciates thoughtful product design. Both companies wrote about the campaign on their company blogs. And Synchrosina sent a letter to Clorox on company letterhead. (Read Synchrosina's letter here.)

Do you have a business that appreciates the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility? Please send a letter to Clorox on company letterhead and then forward it to us. We'll post it here. And if you've got practical recycling ideas for Clorox, be sure and let us (and them) know that too.

Here is our update of the latest blogs and web sites that have promoted the campaign this week or added the badge to their site:

Civic Lessons
Dangling Mind
F is for Fischer
Frugally Green in the City
Glossip
Green L.A. Girl
Greenopolis
Have Fun * Do Good
Knee Jerk Reaction
Lime
Needs More Gingham
Procrastinating in Pittsburgh
Stumbling Toward Enlightenment
The Tardy Homemaker
Thieves in the Temple

Remember, if you have a blog or web site, please mention the campaign. We'll link back to you here.

06/10/08: Please help us spread the word!

2008-06-10T12:38:00.000-07:00

Many, many thanks to Co-op America for endorsing the campaign last week and posting an announcement in their online newsletter. This kind of support from national organizations really, really helps to spread the word.

But, as you know, there are many more Brita users who don't subscribe to online newsletters and who may not belong to environmental organizations. Still, they want a way to recycle their filters. Every day we receive petition signatures from folks who just happened upon the site by Googling "recycle Brita filter." Imagine how many more people wonder how to recycle them but don't think to check online. That's why we need your help to spread the word.

Do you belong to a church, community group, PTA, mother's group, or other type of mailing list? Please consider posting an announcement in the group's newsletter or bulletin, whether online or in print. Already, we have people coming to the site from miscellaneous online forums, blogs, local newsletters, church announcements, and just today a local mother's group. That's great and we need to keep it going.

Are you a member of any other environmental, consumer, or social justice organization that you feel could endorse or help promote the campaign? Please let them know about us. We have a whole page of ideas for how both individuals and organizations can help spread the word.

We'd love you to be our MySpace friend or join our FaceBook group. And please let others know about the campaign through those social networking venues.

What other ideas do you have? Please leave a comment here with any suggestions for us. We want to hear any and all of them!

Beth

Join our new Yahoo! group to meet others & arrange filter collection.

2008-06-10T12:30:00.001-07:00

We realize that collecting Brita filters individually through the mail is inefficient and uses much more fuel than if filters could be collected locally and mailed in bulk to us. So we've set up a new Yahoo! Group so that supporters can meet others in their local area and arrange for collection/pick up.

This is your group to use. Think of it in the way you might use Freecycle or Craigslist. Use ordinary caution when dealing with people you don't know. It's up to you all to decide how to handle postage costs or other issues. But we just wanted to provide this forum to make it easier to connect.

Thus far, we've received 81 filters and created a new tally on the sidebar of the Take Back the Filter web site for those who are interested in keeping track. Please check the list. Is your state listed yet? We'd love to collect filters from consumers in every U.S. state and Canadian province.

Beth

06/02/08 Campaign Update: Over 5,000 signatures, over 50 filters, many more links

2008-06-02T22:24:00.000-07:00

Special thanks go out to the Organic Consumers Association for publicizing the Take Back The Filter campaign in two issues of its online newsletter, Organic Bytes.

To date, we've collected over 5,000 signatures and 53 used filters from consumers in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Washington, DC. Is your state missing? Can you help us collect filters from every U.S. state and Canadian province? Please send them our way!

We also want to thank all the bloggers and organizations that have written about the campaign on their sites. The latest additions include:

365 Days of Trash
Achieving Sustainability
Another Limited Rebellion
Brooklyn Green Team
Continental Junto
Do-Greater
Eco Women: Protectors of the Planet!
The Good Human
Green Plan(t)
GreenBlog
KNERQ
Lunapads Blog
Mint Green Lifestyle
New American Dream's Carbon Conscious Consumer blog
Nicola Knits
Organic Consumers Association's Organic Bytes Newsletter #134
Organic Consumers Association's Organic Bytes Newsletter #135
OrganicMania
Our Friendly Earth
Paradoxes of Whole Living
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Scream to be Green
Searching for God Knows What
Shazam in the Kitchen
Sierra Club's Zero Waste page
Sleep is the New Sex
Something Rich and Strange
Tao of Change
UGOGRN
The V-Blog
What? Amber Blogs!

And here are bloggers who have added a link or badge to their sidebar:

Bugs and Brooms
Drug Induced Coma
Garden Misadventures
Genuinely Jenny
Mom2-2GoodBoys
My Thoughts, My Crafts, My Kids, My Life
News from Bwlchyrhyd
Purposeful in Puyallup
SJSFalter+

We don't have any further information from Clorox, but we know that our efforts are making a difference, so please continue to help us spread the word!

Beth

05/23/2008: Sierra Club sends letter to Clorox urging BRITA take-back program!

2008-05-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

Last week, the Sierra Club, SF Bay Chapter sent a letter to Clorox asking the company to develop a take-back re-use/recycling program for BRITA cartridges. This letter will be posted on the National web site and other chapters encouraged to write their own letters. See the original PDF copy of the letter here. Or read the text below.

Are you a member of an organization that might support the Take Back The Filter campaign? Please e-mail beth@takebackthefilter.org and let us know!

May 17, 2008

Dan Gagen, BRITA Brand Manager
The Clorox Company
1221 Broadway
Oakland, California 94612

May 13, 2008

Dear Mr. Gagen:

Sierra Club, San Francisco Bay Chapter was recently approached by the "Take Back the Filter" campaign in Oakland to join in asking you to implement a program for collecting, recycling and reusing Brita water filters, which are a component of a product line you own. The Sierra Club believes that increased recycling and the adoption of "Extended Producer Responsibility" (EPR) are key components of reducing waste from the production cycle. By recycling and reusing products like the Brita water filter, the Clorox Company can keep tons of usable material from being needlessly discarded and thrown in land fills. Therefore, we join the "Take Back the Filter" campaign in asking you to:

1) Redesign the Brita filter cartridges so that the plastic housing can be refilled rather than discarded each time the filter is changed. After reviewing your product, it appears to the Sierra Club that redesigning the filter to allow the plastic housing to be reused rather than discarded, is possible without extensive redesign.

2) Provide a take-back program so that used cartridges can be returned to the company for recycling. The system that we favor would involve setting up collection stations at the retail stores selling Brita products (such as exists in Europe). An alternative to this might be a system whereby you provide customers with a pre-paid postage envelope in which they can send their used filter back to you. Hewlett-Packard currently does this with their toner cartridges.

3) Create a system for the cartridges to be dismantled and recycled/reused domestically rather than land filled, incinerated, or shipped overseas. When the take-back program for the Brita filters is implemented, the Sierra Club urges Clorox to build or contract with a facility in a location with stringent environmental regulations. Shipping the filters to Asia for reprocessing in an ecologically damaging manner would defeat the entire purpose of the program.

By making the necessary effort to redesign the plastic housing of your water filters, by implementing a take-back program in collaboration with your retail partners, and by doing this in a manner that does not damage the local environment, we are confident the Clorox Company will set an example of producer responsibility and environmental stewardship that will be appreciated by your customers as well as the
Sierra Club.

Sincerely,
Norman La Force
Chair, Sierra Club San Francisco Bay Chapter

NLF:sw
cc: Don Knauss, CEO
Jon Balousek, Vice President, Specialty Division
Drew McGowan, Brand Media Relations

May 2008 Bay to Breakers Photo Album

2008-05-20T11:33:00.001-07:00

Click photos to see larger view.

05/20/2008: BRITA filter crosses SF at Bay to Breakers to promote TBTF campaign!

2008-05-20T10:59:00.000-07:00

(Click photo to see larger view.)

Sunday was a great day for the race, and "race" we did across San Francisco spreading the word about the Take Back The Filter campaign. Alongside Beth, dressed as a BRITA pitcher filter cartridge, marched volunteers Tanya, as a German girl wondering why BRITA filters are recyclable in Germany but not the U.S., and Christa, dressed as a combination incinerator/landfill (with actual BRITA filters combined with other garbage attached to her skirt) urging folks not to let their filters go up in smoke.

We passed out little flyers (click here if you'd like some to print and pass out [PDF format]) and explained the campaign to many people who enthusiastically pledged to sign the petition and spread the word. At the Footstock Costume Contest, we took the stage and announced the campaign to an appreciative crowd.

Now that the costume and signs have been created, look for us to take to the streets again to gather signatures and support. Would you like us to visit your venue? E-mail beth@takebackthefilter.org. Want to make your own BRITA costume? Contact me and I'll send you instructions for how I made mine. Have more ideas for campaign promotion? We want to hear them!

Click here to view more photos from our day at the Bay to Breakers.

05/15/2008: Escaped BRITA filter needs your help to get across San Francisco this Sunday!

2008-05-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

This may look like ordinary white poster board, but in a few days it will transform into a BRITA water filter costume I'll wear to cross San Francisco at the ING Bay to Breakers this Sunday in an effort to publicize the campaign to a wider audience. Thing is, I can't do it alone!

I'd love to have at least one volunteer to help pass out flyers along the route. More volunteers would be even better. Let's create a last-minute team of folks wearing www.takebackthefilter.org signs on their fronts and backs and helping the BRITA cartridge escape the landfill.

Please e-mail me at beth@takebackthefilter.org if you're interested in participating this Sunday. It'll be fun!

Beth

05/09/2008: The filters are coming! The filters are coming!

2008-05-09T22:11:00.000-07:00

BRITA water filter cartridges are starting to arrive from all over the country: Berkeley, CA; Pearland, TX; Milford, NJ; Baltimore, MD; Montgomery, AL! We've collected 22 so far and hope that number will increase dramatically as the campaign progresses.

One of Clorox's contentions is that consumers are not willing to pay a little extra for filters that are recyclable. We hope that recyclable filters will not cost more. But the fact that people are willing to pay for postage to ship their filters across the country proves that for at least some of us, protecting the environment is worth a little extra monetary cost.

So please keep those filters coming! Organize a group collection for your school, office, or neighborhood and send them all at once. Publish an ad on your local Craigslist or Freecycle Group requesting BRITA filters. And don't forget, we want BRITA faucet filters too.

I'll post regular updates of the numbers collected here. Stay tuned!

04/30/2008: Over 2,000 signatures and many more web sites supporting the campaign!

2008-04-30T18:20:00.000-07:00

We've been especially pleased that No Impact Man Colin Beavan wrote a terrific article about the campaign that has helped to put us over 2,000 signatures. Many more bloggers and web sites are jumping on the bandwagon. Here are more sites that have promoted the campaign since I last reported on 4/19:

Apartment Therapy's Re-Nest
Carla Golden's Get Healthier Blog
Drinking Liberally
Eco Geekos
Giveback
Green Daily
Greener One
LibraryLeaf
No Impact Man
Prairie Dreams
Rites of Passage
RyKri
Sean Ward's Blog
Simply Authentic
Sucker For Marketing
Tiny Choices
Touch of Avalon

Other sites that have added the badge or link:

Memories of Mine to Thine
Midnightsky Fibers on LiveJournal
Oh Hello Baby
One Size Fits All
Our Friendly Earth
Paradigm Shifted

This list doesn't even include all the various forums and discussion threads containing links to the campaign. So please keep it up. It's working!

And finally, "Take Back The Filter" is now on FaceBook! Please join our group and help us spread the word!

Beth

4/29/2008: Take Back the Filter Catches Clorox’s Attention

2008-04-29T14:17:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month, our group efforts were rewarded as we caught the attention of Clorox. On the 17^th, Beth received an email from an individual representing Clorox asking to meet with her. The email said,

“I've seen you Web site and your campaign and would love to speak with you personally so I can explain what we are doing as a company and potentially work together towards a solution.”

Progress came quickly considering the group was founded in January of this year!

The meeting with the Clorox representative shed some light on Clorox’s stance, but left many questions as well. Clorox continued to defend the uncertainty behind recycling filters in the US citing barriers with current waste management practices, consumer demand, and economic feasibility (meaning they aren’t sure they are willing to bear the costs of a recycling program or whether their customers would be willing to do so).

Our group has followed this conversation up with a letter of our concerns, including our thoughts on sending plastic to China for recycling if (and when) a filter recycling program is instituted.

(Side note: Why are we so concerned about plastic recycling happening over seas rather than here at home? Please take a look at the following BBC report to understand what happens when our plastic waste is shipped to Asia.)

This early conversation with Clorox indeed reiterated the need for this campaign to push forward. It is vital we show Clorox that the demand is there for a filter recycling program.

Luann

04/19/2008: Over 500 signatures and spreading across the Internet!

2008-04-19T23:19:00.000-07:00

We've collected our first 500 signatures, and news about the campaign is spreading across the Internet. Here's a list of sites we know about so far that have written about the "Take Back The Filter" campaign, in alphabetical order:

Allie's Answers
Athena's Armoury
Bad Human
Bean Sprouts
Blue Collar Crunch
Burbanmom's Going Green
Californians Against Waste
Crunchy Chicken
Eco 'Burban
Environmental Working Group's Enviroblog
Everyday Trash
Fake Plastic Fish
Frugal Nuts Are Green
Green Bean Dreams
Green Made Simple
Gruppie Girl
It's A Green, Green, Green, Green World
L.A. Times Emerald City Blog
Low Impact Home
Organic Picks
Riot4Austerity
Rob's World
Surely You Nest
The_Extra_Ordinary

And other sites have put up our badge:

Happy Vegan Face
Wild Orchids For Trotsky

I apologize if I've missed anyone. Please let me know. And if you have a blog and would like to be listed among our blogger supporters, please write about the campaign and let us know. We'll be happy to link to your site!

500 signatures is a great start, but we're going to need many, many more to show Clorox that Brita filter waste is an issue that's very important to consumers. Please keep spreading the word. I'll have more tools for you to use in the coming days!

Beth

Endorsers

2008-04-17T10:28:00.001-07:00

Organizations:

"CPSC's mission is to shift California's product waste management system from one focused on local government funded and ratepayer financed to one that relies on producer responsibility in order to reduce public costs and drive improvements in product design that promote environmental sustainability. CPSC urges Clorox to redesign its Brita filter cartridges so that they can be refilled and/or create a system to recycle these plastic filter cartridges instead of sending them to the landfill." Rob D'Arcy, Chair, CPSC Board of Directors. Read CPSC's letter to Clorox here.

"Californians Against Waste supports extended producer responsibility. Plastic is the fastest growing component of the waste stream and plastic litter is contaminating our environment at a staggering rate. Objects where there is no proper avenue for disposal, like Brita filters, are more likely to be littered or landfilled. If a corporation is going to produce a plastic item incompatible with our recycling stream, they have an obligation to give consumers the opportunity to dispose of their product in an environmentally preferable manner." Bryan Early, Plastic Waste Reduction Campaign Coordinator, Californians Against Waste

"Here at Co-op America , we believe in cradle-to-cradle design principles and in planning ahead to reuse products after they have reached the end of their life cycle. Last year, we were proud to call on our members to start asking Brita to take back its water filters, and we're so pleased to endorse this Take Back the Filter campaign, organized to do just that. Brita should learn from any number of the great green businesses of Co-op America 's Green Business Network(TM) and build more sustainability into its supply chain." Alisa Gravitz, Executive Director,Co-op America

"Food and Water Watch’s Take Back the Tap campaign advocates for clean, affordable public water for all. We urge consumers to drink tap water rather than bottled water and to support federal funding for public water systems. Choosing home tap water filtration rather than drinking bottled water saves consumers money while reducing waste and greenhouse emissions produced in the production and transportation of bottled water. Drinking tap water also keeps national water resources in local hands, supporting public water systems.

We support Take Back the Filter’s campaign pressuring Clorox to recycle filters responsibly. Drinking filtered tap water should not compromise a consumer’s concern for water quality over his/her concern to reduce plastic litter clogging our nation’s landfills." Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director,Food and Water Watch

"Water filters appear to be an attractive solution for people concerned about chlorine and other potential contaminants in their tap water. But throw-away water filters only add to the waste that is crowding our landfills and polluting our soil and water. The Take Back campaign is a smart and simple way to stop this waste." Stuart Moody, Rethinking Plastics Campaign Director, Green Sangha

"Brita water filters are an ideal example of a product that could easily be redesigned to be re-used, re-filled, then re-manufactured before ultimately being recycled back into new filters by the manufacturerer. Instead they deliberately design their product to become waste. Brita should seize the opportunity to take responsibility for their product, and create a closed manufacturing system for their filters." Linda Christopher, Executive Director, GrassRoots Recycling Network

"The Sierra Club believes that increased recycling and the adoption of "Extended Producer Responsibility" (EPR) are key components of reducing waste from the production cycle. By recycling and reusing products like the Brita water filter, the Clorox Company can keep tons of usable material from being needlessly discarded and thrown in land fills." Norman La Force, Chair, Sierra Club San Francisco Bay Chapter. Read Sierra Club's letter to Clorox here. (PDF format)

Businesses:

“eCycle Group supports nearly 15,000 community-based printer cartridge and cell phone recycling initiatives across America. We commend the grassroots leadership which Take Back The Filter is demonstrating in their campaign. By applying market pressure, groups like Take Back The Filter show that responsible waste stream management is a business opportunity and not a burden.” Alex Moore, Service Director, eCycle Group

"We like to drink clean water, and use a Brita pitcher to filter our water. One of our operating principles is to limit what we add to landfills, so throwing the used filters in the trash has always caused frustration. We applaud the Take Back the Filter campaign for giving us, and many others, a way to make our collective voices heard on this issue. We think their approach is both effective, and refreshing, because it encourages Clorox to continue moving in the right direction, rather than being simply confrontational and focused on what's wrong. That is the best way to effect positive change: building awareness, sharing solutions, keeping it real, but keeping it light." Jeph Foust & Dorothy LaRue, Studio Freshh Audio Video.

"Great design is our business at Synchrosina - and we believe it's poor design to throw something recyclable away. That's why we are proud to join Take Back the Filter in the campaign for earth-friendly water filtration. There's no better gift we can give the world than the gift of sustainable solutions." Erica Jolley-Meers, President, Synchrosina Creative Services. Read Synchrosina's letter to Clorox here. (PDF format)

Blogs and Web Articles:

365 Days of Trash
A Moment of Choice
Achieving Sustainability
Allie's Answers
Another Limited Rebellion
Apartment Therapy's Re-Nest
Apt 403
Athena's Armoury
Bad Human
Bean Sprouts
Blue Collar Crunch
Brooklyn Green Team
Bugs and Brooms
Burbanmom's Going Green
Californians Against Waste
Care and Conserve
Carla Golden's Get Healthier Blog
Citizen Green
Compete to Conserve
Continental Junto
Co-op America's Action, News & Resources, June 3 issue
Council of Canadians | London
Crunchy Chicken
Dangling Mind
dbs62's Journal
Design Ministry
Do-Greater
Drinking Liberally
Earth911.org, a great resource for recycling information
East Bay Express article, June 18, 2008
Eco 'Burban
Eco Geekos
Eco Women: Protectors of the Planet!
Eco-Cycle's Guide to Hard to Recycle Materials (listed under Water Filters)
eCycle Group blog
Everyday Sustainable
Environmental Working Group's Enviroblog
Everyday Trash
F is for Fischer
Fake Plastic Fish
Fishlamp
flyingeagle101
Frugal Nuts Are Green
Frugally Green in the City
GirlieGirl Army
Giveback
Glossip
The Good Human
Good Magazine
Green Bean Dreams
Green Daily
The Green Fork
Green Grown and Sexy
Green L.A. Girl
Green Made Simple
Green Plan(t)
Green Talk
GreenBlog
Greener One
Greening You
Greenopolis
Gristmill
Gruppie Girl
Have Fun * Do Good
Ideal Bite's Tip of the Day, August 25, 2008
Ideeahs
In Women We Trust
It's A Green, Green, Green, Green World
Improvilaw
Kale for Sale
Knee Jerk Reaction
KNERQ
L.A. Times Emerald City Blog
LibraryLeaf
Lime
Low Impact Home
Lunapads Blog
Mint Green Lifestyle
My Zero Waste
New American Dream's Carbon Conscious Consumer blog
Nicola Knits
No Impact Man
Northern California Recycling Association online newsletter, July 2008
Oly Ost
One Girl Revolution
Organic Consumers Association's Organic Bytes Newsletter #134
Organic Consumers Association's Organic Bytes Newsletter #135
Organic Picks
OrganicMania
Our Friendly Earth
Paradoxes of Whole Living
Peacock Moon
Personal Issues
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Plastic is Forever
Prairie Dreams
Procrastinating in Pittsburgh
Riot4Austerity
Rites of Passage
Rob's World
Rockridge Residents.org
RockyHot1
RyKri
Scream to be Green
Sean Ward's Blog
Searching for God Knows What
Shazam in the Kitchen
Sierra Club's Zero Waste page
Simply Authentic
Sleep is the New Sex
Something Rich and Strange
Studio Freshh blog
Stumbling Toward Enlightenment
Sucker For Marketing
Surely You Nest
Sustainlane Online Newsletter, June 2008 Edition 59
Sustainlane Take Back The Filter review
Synchrosina Creative Services blog
Tao of Change
That Hamilton Woman
The New York Times: Pressure Is on to Recycle Water Filters
The Tardy Homemaker
The_Extra_Ordinary
Thieves in the Temple
Tiny Choices
Touch of Avalon
Two Cats and Counting
UGOGRN
The V-Blog
What? Amber Blogs!

And here are bloggers who have added a link or badge to their sidebar:

Bugs and Brooms
Civic Lessons
Drug Induced Coma
Erika... with a K...
Garden Misadventures
Genuinely Jenny
Gray Matters
Green Phone Booth
Happy Vegan Face
Kale for Sale
Lacey - Journalism Blog
Live Green, Wear Black
Maybe Local Vegan!
Memories of Mine to Thine
Midnightsky Fibers on LiveJournal
Mom2-2GoodBoys
My Thoughts, My Crafts, My Kids, My Life
Natural Health News
Needs More Gingham
News from Bwlchyrhyd
Oh Hello Baby
One Size Fits All
Our Friendly Earth
Paradigm Shifted
Pop Goes Green
Purposeful in Puyallup
Retro Housewife Goes Green
SJSFalter+
Traveling Em
Wild Orchids For Trotsky

04/14/2008: We've received our first used filter cartridge!

2008-04-14T20:54:00.000-07:00

The first day of the campaign, and already we've received one used filter cartridge to return to Brita. This one came from a supporter in Berkeley, CA. Hoping this is the first of many.

Spread The Word!

2008-04-14T00:51:00.001-07:00

Please help us collect as many signatures and used filters as possible by telling everyone you know about this campaign. Here are a few ways to help to spread the word.

INDIVIDUALS:

1) Send an e-mail to everyone you know. (Click here for a sample e-mail.)

2) If you have a blog, consider writing a post about the campaign. Or install this badge on your sidebar. You can either download the badge to your own web site and link it to http://www.takebackthefilter.org or copy and paste the following code into your blog template:

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

3) Put up flyers around campus, in grocery stores, and on community bulletin boards:

Mini flyer (PDF)

8-1/2 x 11 flyer (PDF)

Stickers Version 1 (Word)

Stickers Version 2 (Word)

4) Mention the campaign in chat rooms and other online forums.

5) Write a letter to the editor of your local paper.

6) Call your local radio station and let them know about the campaign.

7) Publish an announcement in the newsletter of any local groups or religious organizations to which you belong.

8) Use your imagination. Leave us a comment and let us know what other ideas you have for getting out the word.

ORGANIZATIONS:

1) Write a letter to Clorox on organization letterhead just as Sierra Club has done.

2) Include a link to the campaign and a blurb on the organization's web site.

3) Include a link to the campaign and a blurb in an organizational email newsletter or paper newsletter or announcements notice.

4) Give us a brief (one or two sentence) statement of support to post with the organization's logo on our Campaign Endorsers page. E-mail Beth Terry (beth@takebackthefilter.org) with any ideas for ways your organization would like to help.

Here is a sample e-mail individuals could send. Feel free to cut and paste into your e-mail program, or compose your own message to let folks know:

Dear _______________,

Do you use Brita water filters to purify your tap water or know someone who does? Have you ever wondered what happens to all the used plastic filter cartridges at the end of their lives?

If you lived in Europe, you could take that filter to a drop-off location where it would be sent back to Brita for recycling. Unfortunately, here in North America, we have no options for recycling our Brita cartridges at all. Each plastic cartridge is either landfilled or incinerated, adding to the toxic waste that is already choking our planet.

That's why I have signed on to the Take Back The Filter campaign (http://www.takebackthefilter.org) to urge The Clorox Company, which owns Brita in North America, to redesign their filters and provide a way for us to recycle them, as is done in Europe. I urge you to join me!

Here's how you can help:

Sign the Petition (http://www.gopetition.com/online/18444.html)

Send in your used filter cartridges: (http://takebackthefilter.org/2008/04/send-us-your-used-filters.html)

Read more about the issue: (http://www.takebackthefilter.org)

Forward this email to as many people as you know. This is a grassroots movement. If we don't speak up, who will?

Sincerely,

______________

Anatomy of a Brita filter cartridge

2008-04-13T03:16:00.000-07:00

Brita On Tap faucet filter cartridge:

This cartridge has been cut open with a hand saw, as there is no way for consumers to open the housing to replace the carbon block.

As you can see, in addition to the housing, the carbon filter has two endcaps, also made of plastic. Why do you suppose these cartridges need a disposable housing? How about if Clorox developed a permanent housing and only the inside carbon block needed to be changed monthly?

Brita pitcher filter cartridge:

Here's a Brita pitcher filter.

And here's what one would see inside after cutting it open. The carbon granules are loose inside the housing. What if we could open the housing, dispose of the granules, and refill it? In fact, there is a company in Britain that has created just such a system: Aqua Select. As far as we know, no similar system is available in North America.

U.K. Pitcher Filter vs. U.S. Pitcher Filter:

According to a representative at Clorox, the filter cartridges in Britain and North America are made differently, which is why they are recyclable in Europe but not in North America. Let's see how they are different.

Here is a Brita water jug purchased in the United States:

This is how the U.S. pitcher filter fits into the jug:

And this is how the U.K. filter (sent to us by a campaign supporter in Britain) fits into the U.S. jug:

So far, they appear to be functionally the same. But it's the inside the counts, right? Here are the insides of both filters after being cut open. The U.S. filter is on the left, and the U.K. filter is on the right:

Both filters were filled with loose carbon granules. The main difference is that the U.S. cartridge has screening material at the bottom. The U.K. filter, on the other hand, has screening material attached to the top. Other differences, like the size and pattern of holes, appear to be cosmetic. We don't see how those small differences could have any impact on the cartridges' ability to be recycled/re-used.

Thanks for your donation!

2008-04-12T04:58:00.000-07:00

Your transaction has been completed, and a receipt for your donation has been emailed to you. You may log into your account at www.paypal.com to view details of this transaction.

It costs us money to maintain the web site, mailbox, and other expenses. Your donation is sincerely appreciated!

What would you like to do next?

Sign the petition.

Write a letter to Clorox executives.

Send us your used filter cartridges.

Spread the word!

Sign the Petition!

2008-04-12T04:50:00.001-07:00

Sign the petition! Note: Clicking the link will take you to our petition site in a separate browser window or tab.

http://www.gopetition.com/online/18444.html

Send Us Your Used Filters!

2008-04-12T03:20:00.000-07:00

Please do not send us any more filters. Brita has announced it will begin collecting and recycling filters in January 2009. Until then, please hold on to your filters. As soon as we have the details on where to send them, we'll post them here.

In addition to the petition and letter-writing, we want to make a strong visual statement. Inspired by Jim McKenna's and John Lieberman's successful campaign to urge AOL to quit sending out unsolicited CDs, we're collecting used Brita filters, both pitcher and tap, to deliver to Clorox en masse at some point in the future.

Please send us your USED Brita filters!

Collect them from your friends, co-workers, and classmates!

Organize a drive!

Join our Yahoo! Group to meet others in your area and arrange filter collection/pick up/drop off.

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, e-mail beth@takebackthefilter.org to arrange for a pickup or take them to the collection bin at the Berkeley Ecology Center store.

Otherwise, please mail them to:

Take Back The Filter
5245 College Avenue, Box #815
Oakland, CA 94618

*Please send only USED filters, not new.

**We are only collecting Brita filters at this time. Perhaps at some point in the future we'll expand the campaign to include other brands.

***Please don't use a ton of packaging to protect them. Remember, we're trying to reduce waste. It doesn't matter if the filters arrive in pristine condition. They're used up already!

We're standing by with big empty buckets waiting to be filled!

Comments

2008-04-09T03:07:00.000-07:00

Please leave a comment and tell us what you think about this campaign. Did you write a letter? Post it here! Did you receive a response from Clorox? Let us know. Do you have ideas for how we can reach more people? We want to hear what you have to say.

About Us

2008-04-09T03:01:00.000-07:00

We are a group of individuals from all over the country who saw a need for change and came together via the Internet to figure out how to make our voices heard. Here are profiles of just a few of us:

Beth Terry, Oakland, CA.
beth@takebackthefilter.org

While Beth had been aware of environmental issues for many years, it wasn’t until the summer of 2007, after reading the article Plastic Ocean about the plastic garbage patch in the North Pacific Gyre, that she really began to take action. By day, she is an accountant for a Bay Area home care agency. By night, she blogs at fakeplasticfish.com about finding ways to reduce her plastic waste and plastic consumption and researches the issues surrounding plastics in the environment.

After cutting out bottled water waste, Beth became frustrated to find that the plastic Brita cartridges she had been using to filter her tap water were not recyclable in the United States. She wrote about the issue on fakeplasticfish.com, and after analyzing the search terms people were using to find her blog, ("brita cartridge filter recycle usa," "brita cartridges recyclable, us," "brita filter recyclable us," "brita filter recycle us," "brita filter recycle usa," and many similar combinations) she realized there were thousands of other people who shared her frustration.

Beth put out a call to action, and the Take Back The Filter Campaign was born.

Seth Gale, Cambridge, MA.
seth@takebackthefilter.org

Seth is a medical resident who is also interested in environmental protection, energy efficiency, and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). He was drawn to this campaign because, like millions, he uses Brita filters for water purity and to reduce plastic bottle use.

When Seth realized that these filters are now sent to landfills, he wondered how there could be no system in place to re-use or recycle their parts. It seemed counter-productive to the initial goal of reducing overall landfill volume. He believes it is the responsibility of all producers to either develop a ‘net-energy negative’ recycling program internally or to contract and fund a program externally. Along with the Clorox Corporation, citizens and corporations all have to move toward shared environmental stewardship.

Nicole Aldurien, St. Louis, MO.
nicole@takebackthefilter.org

Too much of an idealist for her own good (or so she's been told at times), Nicole puts food on the table by working retail - specifically, she's the assistant textbook manager for a local university bookstore. As a kid, when her great-grandmother told stories of living through the Great Depression, Nicole thought her "G.G.'s" creative ideas for thrift were awesome and cool, while the rest of the family rolled their eyes. In retrospect, she realizes that those ideas were also pretty green, and hopes that corporations, especially Brita/Clorox, can be brought around to a similar "waste nothing" ethic. Nicole aspires toward intentional living, and to that end, she recently started making specific changes in her everyday life to reduce her environmental impact, and blogging about at them at bluecollarcrunch.blogspot.com to hold herself accountable.

Tom Eddington, Mill Valley, CA.

Tom first gained an appreciation for nature and sustainability while growing up on a small family farm. He was introduced to the environmental movement by one of his college professors. His interest in this area was peaked last year when watching the video Our Synthetic Sea. Since seeing the video, he has made it a personal mission to remove as much plastic from our society as possible.

Having worked as a management consultant for the majority of his career, he understands the importance of helping organizations balance stakeholder interests.

Becky Glinka, Normal, IL.

Becky has always been somewhat environmentally conscientious but has really tried to step it up a little in the past year. She's become a vegetarian, began vermi-composting (yes, she has worms living in her basement), and started paying more attention to all of the choices she makes in her daily life. Becky wishes that more corporations in the United States would start taking back their products that have reached the end of their useful lives and thinks that Clorox/Brita has a head-start on this since their European counterpart is already doing it. "Let's hope we're able to make a difference!"

Cat Domiano, New York, NY.
TheGreenCat@takebackthefilter.org

Cat is a NYC resident and a theater professional who has always been more interested in finding creative ways to reuse rather than discard. As a quilter, she is constantly seeking new ways to use up small scraps of fabric. In an effort to reduce the number of chemicals in her life (and the environment) she has begun making her own household and personal care products (such as dental powder, hair rinse, floor cleaner, and lotion). Cat is inspired by the takeback programs available in other countries and hopes to encourage US corporations to take similar responsibility. She blogs about the environment, theatre and sewing at itsagreengreengreengreenworld.blogspot.com.

Luann Rudolph, Green Bay, WI.
luann@takebackthefilter.org

Luann has a passion for saving the planet. She spends her days at work as a land use planner working with communities to make good decisions about development and conservation. She spends most of her spare time trying to make the City of Green Bay a more sustainable place to live. She is dedicated to educating the public on environmental issues and convincing them to change their behaviors. That is why she became interested in the "Take Back the Filter Campaign." She believes strongly that everyone must play their role in making this planet a healthy, happy place to live and that includes corporations like Clorox. The blogs at greenmadesimple.blogspot.com.

Margaret Kertess, Arlington, VA.
margaret@takebackthefilter.org
Program Manager, Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment.

Susan Babb, Haddon Heights, NJ.
susan@takebackthefilter.org
Employment Attorney.

Juli Borst, New York, NY.
juli@takebackthefilter.org
Classical Singer and Urban Treehugger.

Barb Scheifler, Berkeley, CA.
School librarian, retired.

Write A Letter to Clorox!

2008-04-09T01:58:00.001-07:00

Here's a sample letter to get you started. Please try to use your own words and express, as simply as you wish, why you'd like the company to provide a way to recycle your Brita cartridges.

Note: Letters stamped and mailed carry more weight than email. However, email is better than not writing. We've provided contact info for both kinds of communication as well as telephone numbers below.

Dear ___________:

I have used Brita On Tap faucet filters and Brita pitcher filters for many years. Each time I throw a cartridge in the garbage to replace it with a new one, I feel very sad that this amount of plastic will end up in a landfill, where it will last forever in our environment. I use the Brita system in order to avoid the waste of plastic water bottles. I urge you to redesign the filter cartridges so that they can be refilled and/or create a system for us to recycle these plastic filter cartridges instead of sending them to the landfill.

As you know, the Brita company in Europe has developed a comprehensive take-back recycling program for all of its filter cartridges. This program is not dependent on city recycling systems. The Brita Company itself collects, dismantles, and recycles the filter cartridges.

I know that Clorox has been making efforts lately to become much more environmentally-friendly with its purchase of the Burt’s Bees line as well as development of Green Works cleaning products and the FilterForGood campaign. It would be wonderful if similar attention could be placed on products that Clorox already manufactures, such as redesigning the Brita filter cartridges so that they can be recycled, as well as creating a take-back program so that they are recycled domestically rather than being shipped overseas, as much of our plastic is these days.

I look forward to hearing your views on this issue.

Sincerely,

YOUR NAME

Here are the names of key individuals at Clorox to write to:

Mr. Don Knauss, Chairman & CEO

Tom Britanik, Vice President – General Manager, U.S. Auto Care & Brita

George Roeth, Vice President – General Manager, Food, Charcoal, U.S. Auto & Brita

Tarang Amin, Vice President – Global Health & Wellness

Mailing Addresses:

The Clorox Company
1221 Broadway
Oakland, CA 94612

The Brita Products Company
PO Box 24305
Oakland, CA 94623-9981
Telephone: 1-800-24-BRITA

Brita Canada Corporation
150 Biscayne Crescent
Brampton, ON L6W 4V3
Telephone: 1-800-387-6940

And here are web links for communicating via Brita's customer feedback form:

English: http://www.brita.com/contact_form_us.php

French: http://www.brita.com/contact_form_french.php

Please leave a comment on our Comments Page and let us know when you've sent your letter and to whom. If you want to paste a copy, we'd love to read it!

Background Info

2008-04-09T00:38:00.000-07:00

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 The Clorox Company, headquartered in Oakland, CA.

Today, while the cartridges from the European company are still collected and recycled, the Brita cartridges from North America are not. A letter from Clorox dated March 7, 2008 states:

It's true that Brita filters are recyclable in other countries, because they have recycling programs for such materials. As of now, the U.S. waste management systems are not equipped to collect Brita filters for recycling purposes. (See PDF copies of letters from Clorox representatives: Letter #1 and Letter #2)

Unfortunately, this statement is misinformed. Brita filters are recycled in Europe because Brita has developed its own collection and recycling system for them and not because of city waste management systems. Clorox could choose to do the same.

Clorox representatives have also indicated in phone conversations that they believed the filters in Europe and the U.S. are made differently, and that's why the U.S. filters cannot be recycled. After having examined both an American pitcher filter and an English pitcher filter, we conclude that they are actually the same.

In August of 2007, Clorox and Nalgene teamed up for their FilterForGood campaign, encouraging people to buy a reusable Nalgene bottle and fill it with Brita filtered water in order to reduce plastic bottle waste. According to Clorox's letter, "One pour-through filter can effectively replace 300 standard bottles of water (16.9oz)" and "...in 2006 Americans used about 50 billion plastic water bottles."

So, if all 50 billion water bottles were replaced by Brita filter systems, that would mean 167 million plastic filter cartridges sent to the landfill! We're all for giving up bottled water. But we think there's a better way than substituting one kind of plastic waste for another.

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.

Our plea to Clorox is this: If your desire to help the planet by entering the "green" marketplace is sincere, please 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 exists!

So why are we focusing on Brita rather than other water filter companies?

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. (Per Clorox's 2007 Annual Report.)

The recycling infrastructure exists within the European branch of the company already.

By purchasing Burt's Bees, developing GreenWorks cleaning products, and creating the FilterForGood campaign, Clorox is making a bid to appeal to environmentally-conscious consumers at this time. Taking responsibility for its plastic waste would be a great way for the company to "walk its talk."