Goto:

http://www.instructables.com/id/S3DJC97FECFCMFT

A simple straightforward step-by-step method for reusing the plastic filters.

Problem solved.

Nothwithstanding the fact that I have put forward this non-confrontational approach to the problem, I can see there is lots of energy being spent on this. So let me state the obvious…

Clorox is a public company.

The shares of the public company are owned by the “public”.

That’s you folks (either directly or through your 401k, pension, IRA etc. etc.).

The directors and CEOs of public companies get fired for not making money (the shareholders do the firing by the way).

So you, as shareholders, can tell the public company (at shareholders meetings), how you want the company to behave.

In this case, you would tell Clorox that you don’t mind making a few fractions of a penny less in dividends if they’d only recyle the filters.

Problem solved! – Oh by the way this works for all public companies…

Peace

Sven Gali

Getting back to water filters: Brita filters use an abundance of plastic, while others use less. Hydrotec systems are primarily what US Pure water installs in homes, and their filters use some plastic, probably less than Brita, but without cutting a filters apart and doing a weight comparison, I can’t be sure. Perhaps the way to get use the least amount of plastic would be to install a whole house GAC filter, which costs quite a bit up front, but cuts the chloramine, chlorine and quite a few other nasties out of the water. It’s not as effective as RO, but for those with good source water (much of the bay area, except those on well water), this is a fine solution and you’ll experience nicer water for showering as well. For those who don’t own their own homes (or can’t make the investment) the choice isn’t as clear. Most people will tell you that drinking the tap water is fine, and in the days before the widespread use of Chloramine, it was true that you could use tap water and then let the Chlorine off-gas by letting the water stand. Chloramine won’t off-gas no matter how long you let it sit, hence the desire for filtration to remove the chloramine and associated taste. So what to do? My vote is to reduce the amount of plastic bottles. Get an undersink (or sink-top if you’re not allowed to mod you sink) carbon block filtration system if you’re on a budget. Over the course of it’s life, it will use far less plastic than buying all your water bottled. An R.O system provides even better filtration (it’s the “ultimate” in mechanical filtration), but they are more expensive and very few can be found in sink-top models. Finally, there’s whole house GAC which provides less filtration than R.O but it treats ALL your water (which means not just the kitchen sink water but the bath and bathroom sink water too: drink from anywhere!) and large scale GAC usually comes in woven polypropylene bags (which I believe can be recycled). Per gallon, it has to be the least amount of plastic. Just some food for thought.

I enjoy your blog and have been making similar efforts but feel that I’m drowing in plastic.

However, I too have the brita challenge as we come to the end of the last filter.

Then, I had a challenging thought. What about drinking water from the tap (we stopped buying water 1 year ago)? We live in Menlo Park and the water standard is high even though it tastes a bit funny.

So, that’s what I’m going to do. No more brita or filters once we use up the one we have.

sp

terrible person

I must say that you are doing this right with as little plastic as you use. I am finding plastic showing up everywhere now. The box of cereal has a plastic bag inside. (I buy bulk cereal mostly but there is one cereal my wife really likes that is in a box, so we still buy it every now and then.)

Another thing I ran into recently when I tried to convert to greener fluorescent bulbs was that the three way fluorescent bulbs all came packaged in plastic blister packs. Save the planet one way while destroying it another. Kinda didn’t make sense to me.

I hope you do well on your run.