1 Jun 2015 Community groups nationwide will be planting nearly 900 trees during New Zealand’s first official Arbor Week which starts today! The Arbor Week initiative was developed as a joint venture by Keep New Zealand Beautiful alongside Paper4trees and will be running from today until June 7th. Coinciding with World Environment Day, this inaugural event is aimed at schools, businesses and civic organisations to set up planting events to secure a greener future for New Zealand. Keep New Zealand Beautiful General Manager, Heather Saunderson says not only is tree planting great for the environment, but participation in Arbor Week helps community members feel good about the place they live and work. “So far nearly 900 plants have been donated by Paper4trees schools and preschools for the Arbor Week events” says Ms. Saunderson. Paper4trees is a waste minimisation and tree planting programme free to New Zealand schools and preschools whereby they are given 45 litre classroom recycling bins. National Programme Manager, Hope Lawsen says “As an incentive to recycle all the paper and cardboard they use, we reward them with one native tree/plant for every two cubic metres of paper and cardboard they recycle or divert from landfill.” Ms Lawsen says the programme has been running since 2001 so some schools are running out of room for trees so they have asked us to donate their trees to a community project that will benefit from them. “This year, we have partnered with Keep New Zealand Beautiful to donate trees from schools around the country to the Arbor Week Initiative,” says Ms Lawsen. Share this page
