I stopped using a water filter a couple of years ago (now on tap). One thing that bothered me was tossing all those brita/pur cartridges. Don't they also contribute plastic/waste? Does Brita address that issue?

We need filters made out of recycled diapers or somesuch :)

Bottled water may be the hugest conspiracy of our lifetime...

You can refill your water filter. It looks very doable.

There is an instructable on how.

Personally, if my water tastes alright, then I don't filter at all. I just refill my glass drinking bottles from the tap.

FAB advertisement .. !!

I use a PUR filter, SO buys bottled. We recycle. I worry more about the energy used in the freight than the bottle. To each his own, there are no perfect solutions and it is pretty much hopeless anyway.

You tapwater drinkers are foolish, as bad as the bottled water people.. Chlorine and the toxins created when it bonds with other impurities in the water is the #1 cause of bladder cancer, as well as many other problems.. if you want truly clean pure water AND have almost no waste and replace the filters only once every 2 or 3 years...get a berkey.. its a REAL waterfilter, not some joke like a brita or a pur that makes tapwater stink a little less... The berkey black filters + the berkey pf2 actually even takes out a large portion the highly toxic and dangerous fluoride your government is poisoning you with... if you really needed to you could use a berkey to get clean water from a ditch or your own urine.. at one time that wouldn't be a matter of concern, but the days of easily available public services such as water and power in the USA are quickly coming to an end... be prepared...

its not fear of 'Dirty' water, its all the garbage that's added to it that is the problem, Chlorine and the toxins created when it bonds with other impurities in the water is the #1 cause of bladder cancer, as well as many other problems.. if you want truly clean pure water AND have almost no waste and replace the filters only once every 2 or 3 years...get a berkey.. its a REAL waterfilter, not some joke like a brita or a pur that makes tapwater stink a little less... The berkey black filters + the berkey pf2 actually even takes out a large portion the highly toxic and dangerous fluoride your government is poisoning you with...or if you really believe that chlorine and fluoride are safe, try eating a box of old school rat poison(active ingredient is sodium fluoride) and chug a bottle of bleach, well, don't do it, but ya get the point.. if you really needed to you could use a berkey to get clean water from a ditch or your own urine.. at one time that wouldn't be a matter of concern, but the days of easily available public services such as water and power in the USA are quickly coming to an end... be prepared...

im not trying to sell berkey filters or anything , they are just the most inexpensive extreme conditions water filter, what i use at home, and the filters last a LONG time

Interesting campaign, she got the attention she wanted. The image isn´t shocking, in my opinion.

In the US I don't buy bottled or use a filter, I think our tap is just fine. But in Korea the story is different. The water itself is fine, but the pipes are corroded and so metals get into the water. We use a water filter pitcher (can't install anything) but if we had children I'd probably have a test done to compare bottled to the filtered water. Whatever came out better I'd use for my baby.

Just because you get bottled water doesn't mean it has to be the tiny 500 ml bottles though. A very common 'bottled water' source is the water delivery service with the refillable 50 Litre bottles.

This ad is disgusting, but that's the point. It reminds me of news. Everything that happens is real and disturbing. You want to turn your eyes, but you shouldn't.

Stop drinking bottled water people! :-(

One-use items are so dumb...

(and to the earlier comment: yes, throwing away filters is horrible, but one filter goes a long way!)

I used to have a PUR faucet mounted filter, but that didn't work out so well. It would take a few hours to fill up a 64oz bottle, and a PUR representative told me over the phone that PUR faucet-mounted filters aren't really appropriate for NYC tap water as the crap it is supposed to filter out usually clogs up the filter pretty damned quickly. They recommended switching to a pitcher filter, but it still begs the question of why PUR (read: Procter & Gamble) wouldn't tell NYC residents not to buy faucet mounted filters, or at least stop selling them in NYC.

Then I found out that while the carbon in Brita's filters comes from charred coconuts (and not charred animal bones), PUR does not disclose the source of their carbon filters. I explained to the Procter & Gamble representative that the reason I used PUR was because my mother used them at home in the DC area (with considerably worse water quality). For Procter & Gamble, this means "multi-generational" brand awareness. I also explaiend to them that if I don't hear conclusively that PUR does not use charred animal bones for their filters, I'm switching to Brita.

And for all the posturing about which filtration system is the best, you could argue all you want, but steam distilled or reverse osmosis membrane filters are the best. The problem there is time, space, and money. Obviously I'd want one of those systems, but you make do with what resources you have.

I have a reverse osmosis unit that produces all the clean, good tasting water that I want. The water quality is far better than either filtered or bottled. The water pressure forces water through the filters and RO membrane. The downside is that it 'consumes' as wastwater about as much as it produces, and I replace filters about once a year, but I think I'm still ahead by not having to buy disposable bottles.

Those filters are bacteria motherships. No way to make me use one.

how do i know when the filter in my brita is actually @ the end of its usefu life? the replacement marker on the dial in my jug indicates a replacement is needed according to brita, but if i'm filtering city water surely this can only be a marketing scam to make me buy more filters and produce more waste!
is there a test for when the charcoal in the filter is @ the true end of its effective life?

I have an under the counter water filter, buy snapple ice tea, wash bottles and caps after drinking tea, refill glass bottles with filtered water and no pastic involved.

I wouldn't buy a Brita, they're owned by Clorox.
Clorox is famous for having poured chemicals into our rivers, and now they're going to sell a filter to make a profit off the messes they've created? Ugly business model.

Damn, josh1, that's depressing to know, but thanks for the heads up. I'm no fan of Clorox or the heaping piles of bollocks they're unloading as "Green Works," but if Brita is (or more precisely was) a small company, should that necessarily mean that their product line is tainted because they were absorbed by a larger company?

This brings to mind Clorox's buyout of Burt's Bees, and while that in itself is one Hell of soap opera (strangely enough it brings to mind Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary), It was incredibly hard for me to support Burt's Bees well before Clorox came into the picture.

I sincerely wish I didn't have to support Clorox or similarly large Borg-like companies, but it's an unfortunate aspect of modern life. Unless I'm going to come into enough dough to make that Kauai estate more than a dream, I doubt I'll have many alternatives to lining the pockets of a handful of heinously evil companies.

European Brita takes the filters back and refills them... A boycott is afoot to force Clorox to recycle the American Brita filters.
Check out the movement at
http://www.takebackthefilter.org/

It's pretty irresponsible of Clorox to advertise how "green" it is to switch to BRITA water filters when the water filters themselves are made of PLASTIC and are NOT RECYCLABLE!

Please join Take Back The Filter in urging Clorox to create the same kind of take back program for the U.S. as already exists in Europe!

http://www.takebackthefilter.org

I guess you all dont realize that tap water comes from our waste water-it goes through all sorts of purifying ect, exactly like bottled water-no difference

Japan is smarter... They don't flush toilets with purified water, in fact after someone washes their hands (the toilet and sink are connected to save space and water, as you'll see) the water is stored, and later will go into the toilet water.
Japanese toilets actually recycle water, and the sink controls the amount of water that can be used to wash hands, which also restricts wasting water.