Taking on the black stuff

Somebody explain to me what the hell those black particles I see floating around my Brita are. I do know that it's some kind of carbon used to filter but is there any way to filter water of its impurities which does not involve floating remnants of gunk?
Just this morning after having put the entire pitcher through a thorough cleaning, I install my new filter and within minutes it looks like I am staring at a newly poured pint of Guinness and picking chunks of crap out of my teeth. Now it's one thing if that only happened in the reservoir in front of the filter but sometimes you see it in the reservoir after the filter.

It's like I need a filter for a filter, maybe I'll jury rig a coffee filter to the apparatus.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry