FONA News

Giving back: Green initiatives and community involvement
August, 2009

At FONA, we take our role as a steward of our natural resources and member of the community very seriously. This year we formed a Green Team to address conservation and environmental issues at home and the office through process improvements, education and activities to improve the quality of life for everyone at FONA and in our communities. There are many issues we wish to tackle, and we’re only just beginning, but we’d like to share some of our 2009 successes.

Looking around the office, we found many ways we could make a difference:

• Protective Tyvek garments worn in our production areas, as well as mailing envelopes made of the same material, are collected for recycling. On average, 300 garments are saved from landfills each month.
• Our Information Technology team is organizing a recycling drive where employees can properly dispose of old computers, printers and small home electronics.
• Recycling education brought greater visibility to the many easy ways to recycle items we use each day at our desks — from computer paper to soda cans. Blue recycling bins were offered to employees to keep at their desks and bins were put around the building to make it easy to make the right choice and recycle!

What better way to think green than to plant a tree — and a tomato plant?

• Arbor Day was celebrated with the distribution of 200 Colorado Blue Spruce seedlings to employees. Extra trees were planted around our campus.
• Garden plots were built on our grounds. Employees take care of all aspects of tending the plants, which will eventually include watering them with rainwater collected in rain barrels as part of a company-wide education program on water conservation.

We had great success with our efforts to help the environment and people in need. We recycled items from home and gave them a new life where they were needed, instead of simply throwing them away.

• We cleaned out our closets and collected more than 420 pairs of shoes and 110 pairs of socks that were distributed to people in Webb County, Texas. Rather than sit in a landfill, these shoes and socks are now covering the feet of some of the poorest people in the United States.
• We were happy to save 667 pounds of books from a future in a landfill and instead pass the joy of reading on to others. The books were shipped to organizations that bring new ideas and opportunities to Chicago-area school children living below the poverty line and Illinois inmates.
• Education is highly valued at FONA. In support of this belief, we collected 143 pounds of new and used school supplies for Chicago-area school children whose families and schools can’t afford to provide them with classroom necessities such as paper, pens and pencils. Even broken crayons were saved from the landfill and will be melted together to make large crayons for children with disabilities.