Verizon Honors Environmental Excellence

NEW YORK - Thanks to a team of innovative Verizon employees, nearly 10 tons of equipment that might have been ended up as waste is being reused to provide telecommunications services to customers in the Pacific Northwest.

The group called the Northwest Electronic Card Reuse Team, earned Verizon's sixth annual John S. Balaguer Environmental Excellence Award in the employee category for their environmental leadership. This is the first time a team from Washington State has won the award. The award was presented on May 3 at Verizon headquarters in New York City.

"It's an honor to recognize such proactive environmental stewardship," said Stephen Henry, executive director for Safety, Health & Environment for Verizon. "Environmental leadership requires more than just compliance with laws. These employees showed that they are dedicated to conducting business with respect and care for the communities they serve. The Balaguer Award represents the company's long-standing commitment to the environment."

The Everett team identified more than 17,500 electronic "plug-in cards" and 1,000 two-channel digital (TCD) units which could be reused, keeping tons of waste from being introduced into the environment and significantly reducing company costs.

Electronic plug-in cards, which are used to provide services such as Caller ID, DSL (digital subscriber line), ISDN (integrated services digital network) and 911 services, previously were resold or discarded once newer card models became available. TCD units, which provide two digital phone lines at customer locations, were often underutilized. The team researched compatibility information on the older cards and discovered they could reuse the electronic plug-in card technology. They also found ways to recover and re-deploy the TCD units.

"Receiving this award is a tremendous honor," said team member Terry McCoy, specialist - Inventory Management for Verizon. "Working to benefit the environment is always a win-win situation. At the same time we're also providing advanced telecommunications services that will ultimately result in lower costs for our customers."

The Northwest Electronic Card Reuse Team include: Jill Flanagin, Kathy Larsson, Carole Marti, Terry McCoy, Steve Santose, Elizabeth Shawver and Gail Tosh.

The John S. Balaguer Environmental Excellence Award is named in honor of the first director of Environmental Issues in the company's directory publishing organization. Balaguer is nationally credited with recognizing environmental leadership as a corporate responsibility.

Verizon Communications

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) is one of the world's leading providers of communications services. Verizon companies are the largest providers of wireline and wireless communications in the United States, with 112 million access line equivalents and 27 million wireless customers. Verizon is also the largest directory publisher in the world. A Fortune 10 company with approximately 260,000 employees and more than $65 billion in annual revenues, Verizon's global presence extends to 40 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Pacific. For more information on Verizon, visit www.verizon.com.