Students in Grand Cayman showed what it takes to recycle more than 20,000 outdated phone directories during the recent Yellow2Green Recycling Programme developed by the Cayman Islands Yellow Pages.  This year 15 Primary Schools participated in the programme, including Cayman Brac, during a three-week initiative.  Students were encouraged to participate in the contest by gathering as many directories as possible. The top three schools, which collected the most directories, per student enrolled, were awarded cash prizes.

“We are so proud that students once again stepped up to the challenge and helped us keep old directories out of the landfill. Parents and faculty of participating schools played an instrumental role as parents were the ones assisting the children in collecting directories and the teachers were responsible for keeping the count from each class”, mentioned Eileen Keens, Marketing Manager for Global Directories.

This year Prospect Primary School took home the grand prize of $1,500 for collecting 3,907 old phone books. St. Ignatius placed a close second, taking home $1,000 cash, and a great sense of pride for their contribution of 3,654 directories collected.  Third place went to Cayman International School who collected 2,168 phone books and was awarded $700.00.

In addition, the class that collected the most directories per school, also won a Subway Party and the student who brought the most directories won a $40 gift certificate courtesy of Books & Books.

“We’re absolutely thrilled to see how the students jumped at the chance to participate in such a unique recycling effort,” said Mark Macfee, Executive Vice President of Cayman Islands Yellow Pages, parent company Global Directories. “They learned a life lesson about the importance of recycling and protecting our natural resources while participating in the Yellow2Green programme,” added Mark.

All books will be shipped via Thompson Tropical Shipping to GreenFiber in Tampa where they’ll be 100% recycled into natural fiber insulation that is used in homes to aid in energy efficiency. Greenfiber is North America’s leading natural fiber manufacturer and they have been working with communities across the USA, and now in the Caribbean, to help keep over one million tons of paper out of the landfills.

“Thank you to everyone in Cayman who participated. And special thanks to all our sponsors for their support. Without them this initiative would have not been possible as this programme is very costly to run,” added Ms. Keens.

Sponsors

• BB&P
• Books & Books
• Camana Bay
• Cayman Islands Chamber of Commerce
• Foster’s Food Fair
• Greenfiber
• Hurley’s
• Kirk Supermarket
• Lemmie’s Trucking Services
• LIME
• NCI Services
• Subway
• Thompson Line
• Vision Marketing
• Weststar TV