Wolf00200.015.06.010.012008-06-20T13:23:24+00:00false<p> You've likely seen it before, you come home to find a bag of useless phonebooks on your porch. I realized recently that I haven't used a phonebook or yellowpages in <em>years</em> - I take them straight to recycling. They are dinosaurs. </p> <p>This got me thinking<strong> - shouldn't I be able to opt-out of automatic delivery?</strong> Wouldn't there be a significant impact if everyone stopped receiving phonebooks and yellow pages? Apparently the major players pumped out <a href="http://www.paperlesspetition.org/moreinfo.php">540 million directories this year</a>.</p> <p>This is insane and wasteful and I want people to know they can opt-out. Below are the numbers to call for the major distributors of phone books and yellow pages (none have online forms as far as I know). Simply call the numbers and tell them you want to opt-out of delivery - it takes a few minutes. I called all the ones below myself. </p> <p><strong>AT&T/YellowPages (formerly SBC and Bell South):</strong></p> <p>1.800.792.2665</p> <p><strong>Verizon (Idearc):</strong></p> <p><strike>1.888.266.5965</strike> Out of Service<strike><br /> </strike></p> <p><strong>Dex:</strong></p> <p>1.877.243.8339 </p> <p><strong>Yellow Book:</strong></p> <p>1.800.373.3280 or 1.800.373.2324 </p><p>The major players use a tactic called "saturation distribution" that means that you may get books even if you don't have a land line.</p> <p> <a href="http://www.paperlesspetition.org/">PaperlessPetition.org</a> is one of the only resources I found who is working on this issue. From their site:</p> <blockquote><p>...expedite an end to this needless environmental waste, educate consumers on <a href="http://www.paperlesspetition.org/moreinfo.php#alternatives">free and easy alternatives</a>, and shed light on the growing inaccuracy of readership statistics that drive advertisers to still invest in this antiquated medium. </p></blockquote> <p>If you're interested, you can get a badge <a href="http://www.paperlesspetition.org/spreadtheword.php#banner">here</a>.</p><p>You can also sign up to not receive any phone books here:</p><p>http://www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org/stop-yellow-pages/ </p><p> </p><p>Here are some shocking and disgusting info on what these directories waste every year: </p><p><strong>To produce 500 million books:</strong></p> <ul><li><strong>19 million trees need to be harvested</strong></li><li><strong>1.6 billion pounds of paper are wasted </strong></li><li><strong>7.2 million barrels of oil are misspent in their processing (not including the wasted gas used for their delivery to your doorstep) </strong></li><li><strong>268,000 cubic yards of landfill are taken up </strong></li><li><strong>3.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity are squandered</strong> </li></ul><p>Got this from a great site who is helping to end this terrible practice: </p><p>http://www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org/about.html </p><p> </p>00false11754false754habithttp://www.commoncraft.com/how-stop-receiving-phone-books-and-yellow-p9false0Stop Receiving Yellow Pages & Phone Books02010-01-20T06:04:40+00:003235300