Meijer is supporting United Way literacy programs across the Midwest through a new partnership with Better World Books that allows customers to drop off unwanted used books in drop boxes stationed at 164 Meijer parking lots.
Collected books will then be sold online, with a portion of each sale going to local United Way agencies. Books that cannot be sold are donated to promote literacy, or recycled to cut down on energy and environmental waste.
Better World Books, an e-retailer and social enterprise company, gives each partnering landowner a portion of the revenue it receives after selling the collected books. The landowner is then required to share a part of those proceeds with a local literacy- or education-based charity.
Meijer understands how important it is to support the communities where its customers and team members work and live, which is why it's donating all the proceeds to United Way literacy programs across the Midwest. Meijer expects to donate $125,000 each year to an estimated 50 local United Way agencies in the communities where the Meijer drop boxes are located.
Meijer rolled the program out to 164 stores across the Midwest in October and expects to collect more than 1 million books each year. The program is expected to annually save:
- Book Pounds: Nearly 1.5 million pounds
- Trees: Nearly 17,000
- Water: Nearly 8.3 million
- Green House Gas: More than 2.2 million pounds
- Landfill Space: More than 2,000 cubic yards
- Electricity: More than 3.2 million kwh