Retailer announces 2024 H-E-B Community Recycling Grant recipients and grows multiple environmental programs across Texas
This April during Earth Month, H-E-B will continue to further its year-round commitment to supporting environmental stewardship initiatives across its business and in communities across Texas. Guided by the company’s Our Texas, Our Future commitment, H-E-B’s mission is to increase awareness, and adoption of, sustainability efforts that help preserve Texas land, water, and air, now and for generations to come.
To bolster 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 for nearly 130,000 Texans.
H-E-B also worked with Keep Texas Beautiful to provide funding to support a first-ever community recycling drop-off center in Floresville. Residents will be able to drop off recyclables beginning this fall, starting with clean, flattened 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.
On March 11, hundreds of H-E-B stores kicked off 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.
At the entrance of every H-E-B store, 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 have been able to bring their bundled plastic bags when picking up their online orders. The H-E-B Partner (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 prominent 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, including encouragement for customers to bring their reusable shopping bags.
While How2Recycle labels are a great step to increasing consumer education on how to recycle properly, the retailer also provides a number of best practices on its Our Texas, Our Future website.
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 via 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 through May 7 at H-E-B registers in store and online when placing Curbside and Home Delivery orders.
H-E-B Partners across the state are taking their own steps to protect and beautify Texas, too. Throughout Earth Month, Partners will volunteer at events in the many communities H-E-B serves. To celebrate this Earth Month, H-E-B has partnered with local organizations that provide opportunities and raise awareness around sustainable practices. Among these events and partnerships is the Talking Bees Roadshow with the Healthy Hive Foundation, an effort that will roll out to public libraries in the Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio areas to provide free bee education across Texas. More events can be found on the H-E-B community events calendar.
Since 2012, H-E-B has given more than $20 million to over 500 environmental organizations involved in land and water conservation, habitat and coastal preservation, and community cleanups. As the presenting sponsor for the Texas State Parks Centennial celebration in 2023, H-E-B made a $1 million donation to support programming aimed at engaging all Texans to discover and enjoy the nearly 90 state parks in Texas. Additionally, Field & Future by H-E-B products support the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation in efforts such as conservation along the Texas Gulf Coast, Black Bear restoration in West Texas, and the establishment of Palo Pinto Mountains State Park, the first new state park to be opened in North Texas in 25 years.
