New phonebooks head for the recycle bin

What do you do with your new phone books when they get dropped on your doorstep? Do you replace your old one, which gets used regularly, do you replace the old one and let it sit there collecting dust, or do you do like me, and take it directly to the recycle bin?

Why do they waste their money delivering them to me, when I don't want them? The delivery people are paid for each book they deliver, and the advertising rates are based on the number of people they deliver to. If they don't deliver to me, and the many others who do not want this trash taking up space in the house, then both the delivery people and the advertising arm of the company looses out.

Like newspapers have had to move to a more internet based of delivering their information, to remain competitive, phone books will soon have to follow suit. In this blog, they have had a poll going to see how often people use it. While some people use it, nearly half of the respondants claim it hits the recycle bin upon landing in their yard. Another 30% say they use it about once a year.

While my putting that huge hunk of dead tree into the recycling is much better than trashing it, the first step in environmental support is to REDUCE waste. I could probably find a way to reuse it, which is even better than recycling. I could make paper pots for seedlings, but I can also use the weekly newspaper that litters my yard once a week for those.

I'm not going to claim that the big advertisment is useless. When I'm on the road and need to find something, I might stop and look it up in the book. But I can get it at a phone booth. Even many grocery stores have them stacked up with the newspapers. If I really needed one, I could go and get one there.

If you don't use the phonebook, how do you get phone numbers or addresses? Some poeple will use Google to get information. I'll do this some, but there are better ways. If I know that I am looking for a Joe's Store, then I can Google for their website and get the number, but many businesses still have no site. But wait, there is a phonebook on-line. Several of them, actually. They work a lot more efficiently for me. I don't have to find where I put the book. I don't have to move the stuff I've stacked on to of it. I just open up one of the directories and I search. The one I use most is DexKnows.com. There is also YellowPages.com, YellowBook.com, and many others.

Now for the hard question, how do I stop getting them? It is very damaging to the environment to produce paper, and if you want to stop getting a directory there are actually things you can do.

• yellowpagesgoesgreen.org claims to allow you to opt out of getting a yellow pages.
• The other option is to call each directory you get and ask to be removed. Here are those phone numbers:
  • DEX - 877-243-8339
  • Yellow Book - 800-929-3556
  • Verizon - 800-555-4833
  • The Talking Phone Book - 866-416-2074, ext. 80555

Comments

Post new comment

Your name: *

E-mail: *

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage:

Subject:

Comment: *

• Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
• Allowed HTML tags: <a> <p> <br> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <img> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5>

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA

This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

What code is in the image?: *

Copy the characters (respecting upper/lower case) from the image.