Bahamas Telecommunications Launches a Phone Book Recycling Program

This story almost makes me want to take my phone books on vacation to the Bahamas. The Nassau Guardian, a daily newspaper in the Bahamas, is reporting that the government telephone company, Bahamas Telecommunications Company Limited, or BaTel, is launching a major recycling program in partnership with a locally based shipping company the Atlantis Caribbean Line Limited and GreenFiber, the largest producer of cellulose insulation in the U.S.

Together, the three companies are collecting thousands of old telephone directories in the Bahamas, recycle them, and convert them into reusable products. "Landfills are limited, resources are limited and as the world grows we as Bahamians have to participate more in global efforts to recycle,” said Earl Thompson, island manager for ACL.

The BahamasThe Bahamas has good reason to applaud this recycling program. First of all, while there are 700 Bahamian islands, many of them are too small for inhabitation and as such, only 7 islands are actually inhabited. Meanwhile, with the islands as small as they are, the landfills fill up quickly and the garbage has nowhere to go.

BaTel has a full ‘Go Green Mandate’ that was developed as a result of repeated customer requests, which includes printing those phone books on recycled paper. Marlon Johnson, BTC’s vice president of marketing, sales and business development, told Guardian Business that although the company would like to expand its activities as a good corporate citizen, revenue comes first and it will take its green efforts slowly to ensure that the company continues to maintain and grow revenue.

Bahamian citizens are being asked to bring their old telephone directories to the BaTel offices and place them in disposable bins. The program is currently available in New Providence, home to the city of Nassau, and Grand Bahama, home to Freeport.

BTC has also cut back on the amount of bills it produces and has asked landline customers to go online to get their bill.

Once they make a significant difference in the number of phone books going to landfills, we can definitely say it will be better in the Bahamas.