My Thoughts on Technology and Jamaica: Going back to Mother Earth - How to Reuse the Brita Water Filter in Water Purification Pitcher

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Going back to Mother Earth - How to Reuse the Brita Water Filter in Water Purification Pitcher

If you own a Brita Water Purification Pitcher, you’d realize that it’s really nothing more than a Activated Charcoal Filter as I’d pointed out a long time ago in my blog article entitled “Water Sector Liberalization and the RainCatch Cloak - Activated Charcoal makes Potable WaterWorld”. If you’ve ever happened to shake up the Brita Water Filter, you’d notice that the Water coming out is black in colour, has a carbon-ish taste (not my favourite!) and is filled with little fleck of white colour, which is the crystalline Salts removed from the Water.

So how do you replace the Activated Charcoal Filter? Believe me when I say this will be my shortest blog article ever, as I believe its high time people in Jamaica stop buying Bottle Water or worse, spending money replacing those Brita Water Filters that you can refill yourself. Before I begin though, please note that Filtered Water isn’t free of Bacteria, merely free of dissolved mineral salts present in Potable Drinking Water from the Tap.


You may also notice that Water that’s completely free of minerals can cause headaches; Water needs to have some dissolved salts in it, necessitating that Filtered Water be used mainly for cooking and not kept solely for Drinking purposes! 

Thus a Brita Water Purification Pitcher, which you can buy on Amazon or Ebay (preferably), is only good for purifying that type of Water. If you want to purify Dirty Water or Water from unknown sources, you need to use a Solar Desalinator, instructions for its construction I’ve described in detail in my Geezam blog article entitled “How to Make Distilled Water using a Solar Desalinator”. Then you can follow the following DIY (Do It Yourself) Procedure as show in the Video below!


First you’ll need the following, most of which you can buy on Amazon or Ebay:

1.      ½” Drill Bit
2.      1/8” Drill Bit
4.      Assistant who’s clearly sober and has steady hands
6.      Bottle of Distilled or Bottled Water
7.      Brita Water Filter
9.      Electric Drill
10.  Old Newspaper
11.  Rubber Mallet
12.  Wooden Table

The instructions are very simple, again the video being your guide:

1.      Dry out the Brita Water Purification Pitcher and remove the Brita Water Filter
2.      Spread some old newspaper on the Wooden Table, making it your work area
3.      Drill a pre-drill hole using the Drill fitted with the 1/8” Drill Bit, using your Assistant who’s clearly sober and has steady hands to hold the Brita Water Filter
4.      Drill the larger hole using the ½” Drill Bit and previous hole as your guide, using your Assistant who’s clearly sober and has steady hands to hold the Brita Water Filter
5.      Empty out the used Granular Activated Charcoal
6.      Use the Bottle of Distilled or Bottled Water to rinse out the Brita Water Filter
7.      Place the Dry Plastic Funnel and carefully siphon the new Granular Activated Charcoal you purchased on Amazon or Ebay into the Brita Water Filter, tapping the funnel and the Brita Water Filter to shake down any that has gotten stuck
8.      Once the Brita Water Filter is packed full, Cork the hole tightly with one of the Corks from the Assorted Collection of Wooden Cork, using the Rubber Mallet to tap it into place
9.      Give the Brita Water Filter filled with Granular Activated Charcoal and the hole corked with one of the Corks from the Assorted Collection of Wooden Cork one final shake.
10.  Fit the Brita Water Filter into the Brita Water Purification Pitcher and run the Water through the Bottle of Distilled or Bottled Water through the Filter to remove any Charcoal powder that’s inside the Filter
11.  When the Water finally becomes clear, it’s ready for regular usage again

The best thing about doing this is not just the amount of money you save on buying Activated Charcoal Filters for your Brita Water Purification Pitcher but also the fact that you can turn around and resell the Brita Water Purification Pitcher and provide the Refilling Services yourself. So long as your customer’s don’t have anything against Wooden Corks in their Brita Water Purification Pitcher!

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