2/10/2008

brita is brighter

In some parts of the country (like Kiryat Shemona), the tap water is tastier and healthier than bottled water. I live in Tel Aviv. And that is definitely not the case here. But I am not going to resort to drinking bottled water and consuming countless plastic bottles. Yes, the bottles can be recycled, but that's still a huge amount of plastic on a regular basis that I'd rather avoid. Think about it this way: if you consume one 1.5 liter bottle of water a day, that adds up to 31 bottles a month as opposed to the one Brita filter you'd use over the same period of time. That's why I have a Brita filter and pitcher (and no, I'm not working on commission to help them promote their filters).

The filter itself is made of plastic, though, so a couple of months ago I called the Brita offices in Israel to find out if they are part of the Brita company's recycling program in Europe. I finally got to speak to a very nice woman called Ilanit who told me that they were starting to recycle filters in Israel and that I could collect a few of my used filters and somehow get them to her (she suggested a few different methods of doing this). My tiny household of two only uses one Brita filter every month and a half, so at this rate my contribution of filters to be recycled by Brita isn't going to encourage them to continue with their recycling program. So if you're out there, living in Israel, and you use Brita filters - I'd like to encourage you to contact Ilanit (03-9762448) or whoever else you can speak to about recycling the filters in order to encourage Brita to continue with their new program. (If you live in the US and want to encourage Brita to start their recycling of filters then please see Beth's posts on the subject at Fake Plastic Fish).

5 comments:

Jackie said...

Karen-- your green blog is awesome! I'm going to try to organize a Brita filter collection at school.

Anonymous said...

So many people are interested in this issue! It's heartening to hear that there might be some success in Israel.

Here is another link for folks who want to learn about the Brita reycling campaign in North America. This link actually lists all of my posts related to Brita, as well as the post where they can join the Yahoo group if they want to:

http://www.fakeplasticfish.com/labels/Brita.html

karen said...

Hey Beth,
Thanks for putting your link up. Any success on the US Brita filter recycling front?

Anonymous said...

We are writing letters to the executives to find out their official position (as opposed to what the customer service reps tell us.) That is the phase we're in now. I'll post more on my blog when the campaign heats up!

karen said...

That's great - best of luck! You're so persistent! I'm sure you'll make an impact.