I just added yet another phone book to my teetering stack of phone books. Does this pile look familiar to you? According to Earth911, 540 million telephone directories are distributed each year. I personally have six phone books in my kitchen alone. For some reason, it appears I'm on the super distribution cycle and I receive a new phone book (or two) every few months.
So what's a girl to do with these growing stacks of phone books? Apparently a lot of people simply trash them and 660,000 tons of phone directories end up in landfills each year. Yikes! That's a lot of trees.
I've been recycling old phone books as I receive new ones but decided to take it a step further and simply cancel my deliveries altogether. Yes, you can do that!
It just dawned on me that I have NEVER opened a single phone book since I moved into my house four years ago. Why is that? I use the Internet to lookup everything. The Internet is faster and more accurate than printed directories and it provides customer comments, pictures, directions, and maps.
Want to cancel your phone book deliveries? Simply call the phone numbers listed in your directories and asked to be removed from their distribution list. They will be sad to see you go (and so will their advertisers) but just think how happy the trees will be! I recommend that you hang on to at least one directory in case your power goes out or your Internet connection is down. Or you need a booster seat for your little ones.
If you're the type to "let your fingers to do the walking" and want to keep your phone books, please recycle your old directories instead of throwing them in the trash.
What do you do with your old phone books? Leave a comment and let us know!
Posts
3 comments:
Good point! I never thought of cancelling the deliveries. But I put my old phone books to good use by shredding the pages and using as packing materials when I ship gifts.
I've followed the yellow pages industry on my blog and others too.
Yellow pages publishing companies have no incentive to assist in opt out lists, because their ad sales revenue are based on circulation numbers.
They don't care weather phone books are used or not, so long as they are delivered.
I recommend getting with city council leaders to encourage these deliveries to be considered as trash and illegal dumping. They should ONLY be brought to those who want them.
Or better yet, some communities have a central pick up spot like grocery store or gas station.
My list of articles on this is at the bottom of this post
http://www.futuregringo.com/index.php/2008/09/29/phone-books-blogs-and-new-media/
Thanks, James! I should have noted in my post that while I have opted out of deliveries, it remains to be seen if the directories will actually honor this request. I guess I'll find out in a few months! In the meantime, good tip on working with city council.
Post a Comment