Recycle Our Water Filters

Brita LP has taken an important step in environmental stewardship with its commercials that encourage drinking filtered water from reusable bottles, as opposed to consuming bottled water whose packaging will most likely end up in landfills. As environmentalists, we appreciate this.

However, it must take the second step in implementing a filter recycling program worldwide, as it has done in the United Kingdom.

Brita LP has taken an important step in environmental stewardship with its commercials that encourage drinking filtered water from reusable bottles, as opposed to consuming bottled water whose packaging will most likely end up in landfills. As environmentalists, we appreciate this.

However, it must take the second step in implementing a filter recycling program worldwide, as it has done in the United Kingdom.

We, the undersigned, call upon The Clorox Company to expand the work of Brita Great Britain by offering a worldwide recycling program for its water filters.

For the vast majority (if not all) of Brita%u2019s customers in the United States and elsewhere in the world, local recycling programs do not accept used water filters. As such, we have no choice but to throw our used filters in the trash, where they, just like the plastic bottles that we have omitted or reduced using, will end up in a landfill. Like all plastic products, the filters%u2019 outer containers will take centuries to decompose. The plastic, as it breaks down, leaches toxic chemicals into the soil and ground water, and eventually our food. Worse yet, the toxins that the filters removed from the water can also leach into these vital resources.

We applaud Brita for taking the first step of offering an alternative to bottled water that is sold for profit in disposable containers. However, we believe that, as the largest water filtration corporation in the world, Brita should take the next step of offering a program in which used filters can be dropped off or mailed in for cleaning and reuse. Perhaps it could add an incentive to its customers by offering discounts on future purchases. In addition to showing proper stewardship to the environment and setting an honourable precedent for other water filtration companies, Brita would undoubtedly cut costs by implementing such a program.

Thank you for taking the time to read this petition and consider our argument. We look forward to hearing your response.

Sincerely,