Every time a Sands is sipped, a Strong Back is savoured, a High Rock is relished, or a Triple-B is bought, the local community reaps economical and environmental benefits from the behind-the-scenes business practices of the Bahamian Brewery and Beverage Company of Freeport.

The importance of local business support for the positive economic future and environmental health of our island has never been greater. The Bahamian Brewery and Beverage Company is leading the way in these areas with their outstanding commitment to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle waste, support job growth, and give back to the local community.

On the Green front, the Brewery offers a bottle return program for all bottles that originate from their facility. On a monthly basis roughly 9,000 cases of product are shipped using bottles that have been brought back to the brewery as part of their bottle return program. If this trend stays on course, it equates to over 200,000 bottles every month, or over 2 million bottles per year that are saved from the fate of ending up in the GB landfill. As an added bonus, the bottle return program has decreased trash on our island’s streets as people have realized they can return the bottles to the brewery for $2/case.

The bottle reuse program is just the tip of the iceberg. The brewery also recycles all of their waste aluminum that is created during the canning process of their beverages. All aluminum can waste they produce is picked up weekly by the Bahamian owned company Presto Recycling of Freeport. Presto Recycling in turn compresses the cans and ships them to the U.S. where they are recycled.

The environmental practices of the brewery also benefit the community way beyond waste reduction. Each week, roughly 4 tons of 'spent grain' is donated to local farmers. 'Spent Grain' is a by-product of the beer brewing industry and can be used as a protein additive in animal feeds. Local farmers arrive daily at the brewery to pick up the spent grain that has accumulated from the previous day’s beer brewing cycle. This by-product which would normally be thrown away is helping to feed the island’s livestock and assisting farmers with decreasing their feed costs. Everybody wins.

FREEPORT, Grand Bahama -- No one ever said it was easy to create something functional and beautiful from a waste stream, but a local company has done just that. The most popular flooring on the island is tile, and the waste that is created from this flooring style ends up either sitting in our garages for eternity, or in our landfill for relatively the same amount of time. Well it doesn’t have to, not any more. A local business named Coexistence located right here in downtown Freeport is making beautiful tables, benches, and other requested items using broken and left over tile that normally would be thrown away.

Coexistence, a division of EcoBahamas is a Bahamian owned business run by McNeil Bullard. The business is located on Yellow Pine street directly across from GB Millworks. From the road you may make the assumption that this is just another tile/stone retailer, but upon looking closer you will notice something very different about what is being sold at this retail business. In addition to some standard product, Coexistence offers choices of natural outdoor flooring surfaces and patio furniture made from the island’s own stone and tile waste stream. Ingenuity, creativity, and a love for the environment has fueled this company to literally produce functional products using one man’s trash to create another man’s treasure.

The patio furniture products Coexistence offers are made from poured concrete and surfaced with tile or stone. These items fit in perfectly with natural landscapes. The table surfaces are a work of art, so eating off of a waste stream could be a really beautiful experience. They provide custom options to fit the customers’ needs which leads to another waste stream item they are using- styrofoam.

If there was a product that many of us use that was manufactured  right here on the island and was made from 100% Grand Bahama waste, would you buy it or would you prefer to continue to contribute to the profits of a foreign country?

We all know that Grand Bahama has a lot of opportunity for improvement in the Green arena. The amount of waste that ends up in our local landfill is unacceptable and down right depressing. However, there are business practices, people, and companies who are making a huge difference when it comes to our environmental and economical sustainability, so why not support them and keep the Green right here.

Bahama Organic Mulch is a local product that makes sense for our environment and our pocket books. This product has eliminated thousands of pallets, tons of post-construction scrap wood, and piles of pine forest waste from ending up on our roadsides and in our landfill. The mulch is produced locally by DAPL Farms which creates jobs and keeps money on Grand Bahama. The product is being carried by local suppliers including Kelly’s and Dolly Madison and the consumer cost is no greater than other mulches being imported from foreign countries.

Every step in the process of producing Bahama Mulch benefits Grand Bahama. Businesses who previously paid to have their pallets dumped in the local landfill have been able to reduce or completely eliminate this expense. The same goes for construction sites that accumulate piles of scrap wood. Same deal- DAPL will take the scrap wood and turn it into a useful product that people buy every day. There is no catch. Everybody wins.

Summer is here and we all have choices about how we wish to perceive this wonderful season. We can complain about the heat, the high energy bills, and the possible storm dangers or we can celebrate the long days of sunlight, the beautiful blooms throughout the island and the increased time we have to spend with our families. We have choices every day that can impact our well being and our pocket books. It is up to us to decide how we want to spend our hard earned money and our precious time. Some of us choose to spend money on huge power bills and some of us choose not to by reducing the electricity we use.

The choice to reduce energy usage not only saves money, but in most cases it has a positive impact on our health, our environment and our overall well being. So let’s stop complaining about the heat and look at the upcoming months as an opportunity to enjoy the summer while getting healthy and reducing our power bill expenditures.

Air conditioning is something we have grown to believe we cannot live without. We have become accustomed to controlling our indoor environment to a point where we no longer feel comfortable unless we reduce the humidity and cool the air temperature below 80 degrees. Have we forgotten that this past winter we were longing for a day when we could shed the blankets and sweaters to enjoy the natural warmth of the sun? Is it possible that we are now shelling out hard-earned cash to keep ourselves cooler than we need to be?