In commemoration of Earth Month, H-E-B has announced its 2024 Community Recycling Grant recipients and has expanded multiple environmental programs across Texas.
Guided by its Our Texas, Our Future commitment, H-E-B’s mission is to increase awareness and adoption of sustainability efforts that help preserve Texas’s land, water and air, now and for generations to come.
Community recycling grants
To improve recycling across Texas, H-E-B, in partnership with Keep Texas Beautiful, established H-E-B Community Recycling Grants in 2021. Since then, the organizations have selected projects that focus on increasing access to recycling in rural and underserved communities by funding infrastructure improvements and educational recycling resources. This year, grant funds totaling $250,000 will fund projects in Bandera County, Burleson County, Fayette County and Ingleside, Texas, expanding collection and improving recycling access.
H-E-B also worked with Keep Texas Beautiful to provide funding to support a community recycling drop-off center in Floresville. Residents will be able to drop off recyclables beginning in the fall, starting with cardboard. Once the center is fully opened (slated for April 2025), the center will accept PET plastic bottles and aluminum cans.
H-E-B is a longtime supporter of Keep Texas Beautiful and its programs, including Keep Texas Recycling, which will provide technical assistance to the recycling center.
School Plastic Bag Recycling Challenge
On March 11, hundreds of H-E-B stores began the annual School Plastic Bag Recycling Challenge, with a record-breaking 675 schools joining the effort. Each year, students in classrooms all across Texas collect thousands of pounds of plastic bags in replicas of H-E-B’s front-of-store recycling bins for the contest.
Once the contest ends on April 11, H-E-B will tally the totals and announce which schools collected the most plastic bags on Earth Day (April 22). The winners will receive H-E-B gift cards as a prize.
Last year, 600 schools participated in the challenge, collecting more than 4 million plastic bags that were then recycled.
Plastic bag collection
At the entrance of H-E-B stores, customers can access collection bins for plastic bags and other eligible plastic items, such as other retail shopping bags, produce bags, bread bags, dry cleaning bags, newspaper bags,and plastic overwrap for items like paper towels.
The design of the bins was refreshed last year to make them more visible and informative. But these front-of-store recycling bins aren’t the only place customers can recycle flexible plastics at H-E-B. Since last April, H-E-B curbside customers can bring their bundled plastic bags when picking up their online orders. The H-E-B employee loading the car collects the bundle from the trunk to be recycled at H-E-B’s recycling center.
The retailer also updated the look of the plastic bags themselves, adding the How2Recycle label along with a reminder that customers can recycle their bags through H-E-B. The company reiterates these sustainability messages on signage in its stores, as well as at parking lot shopping cart bays.
Trees for Texans
As part of its environmental conservation efforts, H-E-B launched Trees for Texans in November 2023. This year-round program supports the planting of native trees to create healthier environments and increase shade for schools, communities and future generations.
Additionally, H-E-B, in partnership with Texan by Nature, will offer opportunities for nonprofits to apply for $5,000 grants to help fund tree-planting efforts statewide.
Nonprofits interested in the grants can apply through the Trees for Texans section of the Our Texas, Our Future website. Customers can join in the effort to help plant trees across Texas and donate from April 10-May 7 at registers in store and online when placing curbside and home delivery orders.
Read more sustainability news from The Shelby Report.
