For Earth Month in April, H-E-B is ramping up its efforts to plant more trees across Texas, awarding $5,000 grants to nonprofits, municipalities and civic organizations interested in planting native trees in publicly accessible areas.
Those groups must apply by the May 30 deadline at ourtexasourfuture.com/trees-for-texans. Grant recipients will be notified in July.
Launched fall 2023, the Trees for Texans Community Grant program also supports tree-planting efforts at public schools and throughout Texas forests.
For every new store opening, H-E-B, working with Texan by Nature and the Texas A&M Forest Service, identifies a nearby public school and provides native trees and educational programming for students. The donated trees provide shade to schools with limited tree canopy, which often are the hottest spots in urban areas.
In addition, customers can join in the effort by making donations from April 9-May 6 at registers in store and online.
On March 4, hundreds of H-E-B stores kicked off the annual School Plastic Bag Recycling Challenge, with a record-breaking 792 schools joining the effort.
Each year, students in classrooms across Texas collect thousands of pounds of plastic bags. Once the contest ends April 4, H-E-B will announce on Earth Day (April 22) which schools collected the most plastic bags. The winners will receive H-E-B gift cards.
Last year, 675 schools participated in the challenge, collecting more than 5 million plastic bags that were then recycled.
At the entrance of every H-E-B store, customers can access collection bins for plastic bags and other eligible plastic items. H-E-B curbside customers also can bring their bundled plastic bags when picking up their online orders.
H-E-B also provides several best practices for recycling on its Our Texas, Our Future website.
To bolster recycling across Texas, H-E-B, in partnership with Keep Texas Beautiful through its Keep Texas Recycling program, has supported projects that focus on increasing access to recycling in rural and underserved communities.
Rural towns such as Floresville and Ingleside, among others, have received grants to open the first recycling center in those communities. Since 2021, H-E-B has given out more than $600,000 in grants to 11 communities, providing recycling improvements for 612,000 residents.
Beyond recycling, H-E-B looks for ways to reduce waste and plastic use. The company is rolling out training protocols for baggers to encourage using fewer plastic bags at checkout.
H-E-B uses compostable cutlery and straws made from agave and other plant-based materials at its stores, restaurants and corporate locations. The company continues to search for and experiment with sustainable packaging options to reduce plastic and waste and increase recyclability for its H-E-B brand products.
Throughout Earth Month, H-E-B employees will volunteer at events in the many communities H-E-B serves.
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