Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has launched its second annual holiday card recycling program as a way to encourage customers to use Fresh & Easy stores as a place to recycle used greeting cards.
Proceeds from the sale of the recycled cards will go to American Forests, a nonprofit organization that helps plant trees in restoration areas throughout the country.
Fresh & Easy’s holiday card recycling program will last through mid-January 2009.
The stores will place holiday card collection boxes at the front of each location. The money raised throughout the program will be used by American Forests to plant trees across the U.S.
With the help of customers, Fresh & Easy raised enough money for American Forests to plant 1,000 trees last year. About 500 trees were planted in Arizona’s Kaibab National Forest as a response to the devastation of the 2006 Warm Fire. The other 500 trees were planted in California’s Klamath National Forest to help save several endangered species after the Elk Fire.
“We want to make it easier for customers to make more environmentally friendly decisions,” said CEO Tim Mason, Fresh & Easy. “If everyone in the neighborhood brings their holiday cards back to our stores to be recycled, we can make a big difference.”
American Forests’ mission is to grow a healthier world through tree planting and education on restoration.
“Through both natural disasters and human actions, our forests are disappearing at an alarming rate. The latest figures from the NIFC (National Interagency Fire Center) show that an estimated 5.3 million acres have been destroyed by wildfire during 2008 alone,” said Greg Meyer, Vice President of Marketing and Development at American Forests. “The need to restore our nation’s forests is greater than ever."
