Recycle those Brita filters!

Good news in the world of recycling. As of January 12, 2009, Brita has begun a program in conjunction with Preserve to start recycling your depleted Brita filters.

Preserve is a company that takes those pesky resin-code #5 plastics that people can't always find a place to recycle (Sussex County, NJ does... are you jealous???) and turns them into a variety of products, of which my personal favorite is the recyclable toothbrush.

Since the Brita filter is apparently a #5 plastic, Preserve is accepting the Brita filters in their Gimme 5 program. Gimme 5 works in one of two ways: 1) drop your #5 plastics off at your local Whole Foods, or 2) or you can mail them your #5's.

Now I'm not totally sold how this program works, but then again I'm not crazy about plastics to begin with. Basically, Preserve gets #5's and turns them into products such as toothbrushes, kitchenware, and tableware. After you're done with those items, you have the option of shipping your items back to Preserve where they turn it into plastic lumber, which is NOT recyclable.

Sadly this is the AlGore-ish truth of plastics (and what I hate about them); they're not indefinitely recyclable and at SOME point, all plastics will end up in the landfill. This is where the concept of REUSE and REDUCE come into play. Take a plastic bag for example: REUSING the plastic bag once means that you're REDUCING the total number of plastic bags you throw away by one. The more you reuse a plastic item, the greater it's utility.

Update (11.06.09): I still have my three Brita filters sitting in my shed because I keep forgetting to bring them to Whole Foods! PS. Dear Whole Foods, please build a Whole Foods within a reasonable driving distance of Vernon, NJ. Morristown and Franklin Lakes are simply too far away.