Endurism Spotlight: The Glass Carafe

A BRITA cartridge filters about a hundred litres of water. Then the instructions tell you to throw it out and buy another. Every four weeks. For as long as you own the jug.

The money

The jug on the counter cost about twenty-five euro. That was the deposit. The real product is the cartridge subscription that comes after it. Each filter runs five to six euro in a multipack. BRITA asks you to swap it about thirteen times a year. That is sixty-five to eighty euro a year, for as long as the jug sits there. A plain glass carafe costs ten or fifteen euro, once. It holds the same tap water and asks for nothing after that.

The object

A glass carafe is one piece of glass. There is nothing in it to wear out and no cartridge to replace. Fill it from the tap and keep it in the fridge. It will pour cold water for years. Dutch tap water is some of the most tightly tested drinking water in the world. It arrives safe at the tap, checked more often than any bottle on a shelf. The carafe holds it and keeps it cold.

The math

Ten years, one household, a jug of drinking water on the table either way.

Same water, same table. The gap is about six hundred and sixty euro. All of it is the cartridge.

Ownership

The filter does one real thing. It softens the taste of chlorine and catches a little limescale. That is a preference about flavour. The water was already safe. If limescale is the worry, it collects in the kettle and the washing machine. A jug on the counter protects neither. There is a quieter cost as well. Leave a cartridge in past its month and it grows bacteria in the water it was meant to clean. The subscription is a chore you pay to keep up with. A glass carafe removes the chore and the bill together. It rinses clean and lasts for years.

Ten euro of glass ends a sixty-five-euro-a-year habit.

Own better.