How many of us actually ask the phone company to deliver all those phone books to us? How many times do we actually use them? This has become a revolving paper mill of waste on a colossal scale. And not just in paper, but also fuel. Cutting down the trees (or, just maybe, recycling the paper), delivering it to the printer, printing it, delivering to a distribution center, delivering to households everywhere, sitting unused near a telephone, and then when the next one arrives going into the recycle bin or worse the trash can.
This is one of the most wasteful uses of paper I have ever witnessed.
The phone company constantly hounds us to save paper by extolling the virtues of going ‘paperless’ by paying our bills online and yet they inundate us with useless phone books. Right now I have, collecting dust, a total of seven phone books in my home. I am sure there is duplicate information in these books somewhere if I would just take the time to look. :-) I have two from Trans Western Publishing (one business and residential white and blue pages and one business yellow pages). I have three from Dex that covers the exact same areas! Plus, for some reason I get two more delivered from the neighboring county! I live about two miles from the county line but someone has decided everyone in our community should get their books as well. I never asked for any of these books and can’t remember the last time I even used them.
I have not been able to get them to stop delivering the books. When I call the phone company they say they pay someone to delivery the books and I have never gotten a satisfactory answer or responsible person who can actually stop the delivery. A place of business I once worked for had 48 employees and yet every year we received a delivery of 100 phone books! I almost pulled my hair out trying to get future delivery numbers reduced and to take the extras back to give them to someone who needs them. My requests went ignored.
Just think, if the phone company did not print all these books, the money saved could be passed on to us. I was almost rolling on the floor laughing trying to type that sentence but I was finally able to do it. ;-) I am sure these books represent a huge revenue stream for the phone company through selling ads to businesses but it is unconscionable the amount of waste all parties are enabling.
Almost all of us get phone numbers from the internet so why do we need these 30 pounds of books delivered every year just so we can toss them into the recycle bin?
If we could get these advertisers to wake up and realize that their money is being wasted on advertising in the yellow pages then we might begin seeing less waste from the phone company. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Do you know how we can get the phone company to stop this madness? I would love to hear from you. How about an opt-in option? If enough people do not opt to get the books, perhaps that would send the signal that these monstrous tomes are outdated.
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Here’s another favorite rant of mine: grocery store ads, mail order catalogs, and junk mail.
The catalogs I would think represents some businesses’ lifeline and it would be difficult to cut off someone’s livelihood. But, we should have the option to not receive them if we want. You could just not order anything from them but they will still deliver at least six or eight of them before they get the message. And if the catalogs are their life blood, how can they afford to send them to people who don’t order from them?
Grocery store ads is another story. People are pretty loyal to their grocery stores and would be lost without the coupons. Besides, grocery stores advertise a lot on radio and television and when you walk into most grocery stores the ads for that week are right there next to the front door. So why waste the trees to print even more of them?
Just found a great blog that gives some addresses and websites where you can opt-out of receiving catalogs, credit card offers, insurance offers, sweepstakes offers, coupon mailers, etc. This site is called Green Talk. The post is dated November of last year (where have I been?) but the information is still good.
Can you think of any other area of gross wastefulness? As always, I would love to hear from you.
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6 comments:
If I receive what we call "junk mail" and it has an address on the envelope, I cross out my name and write "return to sender" on it and post it back. Once I kept getting so much from a certain company I wrote on one letter "this person is dead" ! I never received any more mail from them again!
Great idea. I love the "this person is dead" tactic.
Also, you know the inserts that fall out of magazines when you open them up, the ones that have 'postage paid' on them? Well, the postage isn't actually paid until you mail them. So, returning them all blank actually costs the magazine.
Besides, it is all good shredding material for the compost pile:)
I see where we can "opt out" from getting telephone books! The site www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org will allow you to sign up (for free) and they will contact the publishers to stop sending your wasteful books. Best way to recycle is not to have to recycle.
Thanks for the tip Alex. I see on the site that municipalities are fed up with having to deal with unsolicited phone books too.
Some local governments are looking to charge phone companies $5 per unsolicited delivery of telephone books (a charge I am sure will be passed on to us)to help offset the cost of landfill delivery.
They also are thinking about requiring the directory company to pickup your old books in a reusable plastic bag they will be required to deliver the original book in. (Not thrilled about using plastic bags though).
Some Building and Property owners are banning the bulk delivery of Yellow and White Pages to their facilities. They are tired of having to handle the books and the cost associated with the ones left over and old books that end up in their trash dumps.
Some Cities and Towns are looking to stop the delivery of Yellow and White Pages books and are using their litter laws as the tools to enforce their efforts.
I just signed up to stop the madness, thanks again.
Just got home from a two week overseas trip and had two books on my front door. Both of them wet and ruined. My front porch looked like a trash dump with these. And thanks for letting everyone in the neighborhood (including potential robbers) that I was not home! I started to look on-line to get these books stopped from being delivered. Thanks for this site and the tip on the opt out site. Sign up and stop this. The site was www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org. Hey potential robbers maybe this will hurt your business.
Thanks for the website post, Edward.
I didn't think about the aspect of advertising to the world that you are not home.
Yet another good reason not to have these things show up unexpected.
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