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Octopus Publishing Group has agreed to donate books to new charity venture Books For Free.
The green initiative is an arm of charity Healthy Planet, which sets up pop-up shops in areas across the country and gives away books to the public which would otherwise be pulped and put in landfill.
Octopus has given away 60,000 of its backlist books to the charity, which the company said was taking up room in its warehouse. It plans to repeat the donation at a later date. One of the books Octopus has donated is the Tagines and Couscous cookbook under its Australian Women's Weekly brand. Octopus also paid for transporting the books to Healthy Planet’s London-based depot.
The founder of Healthy Planet, Shaylesh Patel, said he was delighted with Octopus’ partnership and would encourage more publishers to donate their books to the charity, which would otherwise be destined for landfill.
BFF currently has 10 outlets with another 18 in the pipeline. The charity operates by taking advantage of empty retail spaces by offering to pay the lease-holder or landlord’s business rate in return for opening up a BFF store and claims to have saved 50 tonnes of books from landfill this year, at 2,000 books a tonne.