Beth Terry's Lessons in Activism
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 12.12.08
Christine previously covered the recent success of Beth Terry's campaign to convince Brita in North America to take back and recycle their filters; Vanessa Farquharson of Green as a Thistle and the National Post interviews her and learns how it happened. It is an excellent guide for aspiring activists. Vanessa writes:
What’s most impressive about the Take Back The Filter campaign, though, is that it began with a single, frustrated woman not knowing how to get rid of her water filter and ended with massive structural change at a multi-national corporation in just months.One might guess Terry, herself, is astounded by such a feat. But she downplays it.
“I think they just needed to know that people really wanted it,” she says.
Beth Terry’s top 5 tips for aspiring activists:
1) First, conduct research — a lot of it. “Find out what the company is already doing, what their position is and what factors are involved.”
2) Put out feelers. “See who else is concerned about the issue and what organizations are already doing something or may get behind you.”
3) Connect online. “Get in touch with bloggers, the media or other connected, influential people. Being creative by making little icons and badges that bloggers can easily put on their sites also helps.”
4) Don’t go after a company that has no desire to change. “Start with companies that are already moving in an eco-conscious direction.”
5) Pick up the phone and call people. “You never know who will support you, so just start talking to anyone who will listen.” More in Green As A Thistle
More Vanessa in TreeHugger:
365 Small Steps Cover a Lot of GroundB
The Gig is Up: A Year of Green Steps is Over
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Can You Recycle Teflon Cookware?
- Sharing Garden Chores with a Friend: Hits and Misses
- 5 Reuses for: Watermelon
- Does Recycling Really Make a Difference?
- Reuse Those Plastic Cups As Earrings
- Forget Going Green Because It's the Right Thing to Do—Go Green to Make Your Neighbors Jealous
These are some great tips for people who don't know where to start! I especially agree with the "Connect online" tip. The internet is such a resource and full of influential people that are willing to help.
Wow, very inspirational stuff!
To continue Tom's thought: the timing is ripe for this sort of thing: well established online communities like freecycle and full circle make it quite easy to amass thousands or millions of anything.
although i commend beth for her effoets i do not support the idea that we shouldnt target companies that dont want to change. this is a poor choice, often these companies are the ones that need to change the most. a "critical mass" can change them. if not then massive boycotts will let others know not to support such companies. merely ignoring these companies is bad activism.
although i commend beth for her effoets i do not support the idea that we shouldnt target companies that dont want to change. this is a poor choice, often these companies are the ones that need to change the most. a "critical mass" can change them. if not then massive boycotts will let others know not to support such companies. merely ignoring these companies is bad activism.
@john doe I totally agree that we should boycott companies that are blatant polluters. My comment is not so much that we should ignore them, but that given the choice of companies to pursue for pro-active change, let's go after the "low-hanging fruit" first. Many people have asked us why we targeted Brita instead of Pur or one of the other water filter companies, and a big reason was that Brita was already "talking the green talk" with their "responsible water" commercials and Filter For Good campaign. We figured they'd be the most open to considering a recycling program. And once their program was in place, we could then focus on other water filter companies.
I can not believe people are applauding her efforts. I already posted a critique on her blog, but basically mailing a water filter in order to recycle is HURTS the environment, it doesn't help it.
Look, I understand the desire for applauding someone for trying to go good, but please, do real good and not just feel good stuff.
@ariel- I have to disagree with you. I think that the carbon footprint of making a new filter v. mailing a filter so that it can have the carbon filtering system replaced and be resold is such that it's an obvious choice what we should do. Just like Dell takes back the ink cartridges so they can be refilled, the company saves money and we keep trash out of the landfill.
Or, if you can manage it, replace the carbon yourself: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-refill-a-disposable-Brita-brand-water-pit/?&sort=NEWEST&limit=50&offset=50
Rosie, Dell doesn't take back their cartridges to be environmentally friendly, they take them back so that people don't send them to the refillers and put out cheap cartridges that compete with dell.
Just look at the second link if you search google for "dell inkjet cartridge recycle" - it's a company that does exactly that, they refill them (since brand name inkjet ink costs more per ounce than gold, so it makes dell a lot of money, and they'd rather those companies didn't exist).
Recycling an inkjet cartridge is not environmentally friendly at all - there is no way to clean out the ink from the plastic without using lots of water or other chemicals. And no one wants to buy plastic contaminated with ink. I bet dell doesn't actually recycle them.
A little google and look:
"Q What happens to my recycled ink cartridge?
A The ink cartridges are recycled in an environmentally responsible manner. Typically ink cartridges are demanufactured and sorted by commodity type (such as plastic) and then either re-used to make new products or disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner."
Read between the lines. Dell just tosses them in the trash.
Which is the right thing to do, and which you should do as well, mailing the cartridge to dell costs far more environmentally speaking than trashing it.
The same is true with water filters. They are a little easier to recycle than ink cartridges since they are not dirty, but the amount of energy you would need to break up the plastic, wash out the carbon, and reuse it and on top of that _mail_ it (I still can't get over that you are going to mail these things). The amount of energy for doing all that is far far far more than the cost of making it new.