Furnace filtration with less waste.

You know that Filtrete™ Brand Air Filters with exclusive 3M filtration technology help capture the small particles that non-electrostatic filters can’t. But did you know that 3M’s engineers have also been working to make furnace filters more sustainable?

Furnace filters with a metal support structure currently contribute to millions of pounds of landfill waste. They are also harder to install and are easily damaged. But 3M engineers, leveraging their sustainability expertise, have come upon a better way to construct a filter.

Now, Filtrete™ Basic and Clean Living Air Filters are going metal free. This innovation has been accomplished by replacing the metal support with reinforced polypropylene strands. The final filter construction is now lighter than metal-pleated filters, which means over 3.5 million pounds of landfill waste will be avoided each year.

This improvement also reduces the environmental footprint of the filter manufacturing process. By eliminating metal from the product, the team reduced the equivalent greenhouse gas emissions of the production by 3.3 million kilograms CO2e per year. While the metal is going away, the performance quality of the Filtrete™ Brand Air Filters isn’t being diminished. “The goal was to keep the performance the same,” said Carrie Sazama, marketing manager of Filtrete™ Brand Air Filters. “We’ve done that, with no change in performance.”

That means Filtrete™ Brand Air Filters will still help capture the small particles that non-electrostatic filters can’t – while helping reduce their environmental footprint and landfill waste, too.