Water Filtration

As the environmental impact of using water bottles makes its way to the front page, more and more people are turning to drinking water filters as the solution. Most don’t recycle their used water bottles, leaving them to forever clog landfills and pollute the planet. And for those that do recycle, watch out – most can’t be reused. Old plastics leech toxic chemicals into water and food, which can cause cancer and other diseases. Not only that, but water bottles are expensive. So water filters seem the natural answer – they’re cheaper, can be used for a significant amount of time, and cut down on the mountains of used plastic.

But drinking water filters can’t be recycled either. At least, not in the United States. And while the environmental impact of throwing away water filters is substantially less than that of throwing away water bottles, it’s still harmful to the Earth.

Oakland, Calf. resident Beth Terry recently started an online campaign in hopes of persuading Clorox (the company that owns Brita) to start recycling filters, according to the New York Times. Her petition, available at TakeBackTheFilter.org, has amassed more than 15,000 signatures. The petition looks to European countries such as Germany and France, where water filters can be returned to the manufacturer or store for recycling, as a model. But, according to the New York Times article, United States municipal waste systems are not yet equipped to recycle filters. Clorox is trying to find a solution, the article states, but in the meantime, consumers should think hard about how they want to approach drinking water.

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