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If you’re reading this blog, then you probably have no use for a phone book. You can get any phone number you need with the browser you’re using right now just as easily as you navigated here to mentalfloss.com. As of 2007, more than half of American households had broadband internet access. And yet, 615 million phone books were distributed in the U.S. last year — nearly two for every man, woman and child.
It’s a thrice-yearly ritual in my neighborhood: Yellow Pages from Verizon, DEX or AT&T are unceremoniously dumped on doorsteps up and down the street. Many remain there for weeks to come; of those that eventually disappear, most are tossed. Of those that are tossed, a national average of less than 40% end up in the recycling bin. That’s a lot of waste. Another, perhaps flossier, way to think about those 615 million phone books is that, stacked end-to-end, they would circle the Earth more than four times. By some estimates, nearly 5% of landfill waste falls under the category “directories.” 
So they’re obsolete. Unsightly. A pain to dispose of. But how wasteful are they? A recently California study estimates that to make 500 phone books, you need the pulp from somewhere between 17-31 trees; you need about 7,000 gallons of water, and you need enough kilowatt hours of power to run a three-bedroom home for about 3-6 months. (And that’s not even taking into account the gasoline you need to truck those books right to your doorstep.)
A lot of people agree, it would be great to get fewer phone books. Maybe even none; I currently have zero in my house and am getting along just fine. But the companies that make the various competing Yellow Pages don’t make that very easy. The circulation numbers they use to determine the cost of ads in their books depend on how many homes they can reach, and it’s $14 billion a year industry — not easily dismantled or retooled without political or economic pressure being brought to bear. Right now, there are laws in various states being considered that would make mandatory a do-not-drop list — similar to the national do-not-call list — though many anti-directory advocates would prefer an opt-in system rather than an opt-out system.
The one kind of phone number I can’t seem to find online? The one that connects you to the phone book companies — so I can opt out of receiving their directories. (I found several listed; none were working.)
Has anyone out there figured out a way to stop these accursed books?
Comments (24)
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I am a marketing director for a Heating & AC company in Wisconsin. These phonebook “sales people/con-artists” make used car sales people look like Saints. They uses some of the most diluted statistics, over charge by about 200% of what it is worth, and penalize you for downsizing. (Ofcoarse, they don’t call it a penalty, they say “you are loosing your special discounted rate”). If anyone knows of a good way to get rid of these dinosaurs, I would be all for it!
posted by Luke on 9-2-2008 at 8:49 am
You know, they are really annoying to have to drag in, dew-laden from your porch every year… but they’re so much fun to rip in half I gotta say we keep them!
posted by Ben E. on 9-2-2008 at 9:00 am
I haven’t used a phone book in so long I can’t even remember. They get delivered to my driveway so when it rains they can absorb about one thousand times their weight in water. I keep putting them out for recycle but they are a waste! I would be eternally grateful if someone could tell me how to ‘opt-out’!
p.s. If you know how to stop those little ‘mini-newspapers’ that end up in my driveway and the menus for resturants that get rubberbanded to my mailbox I would be thrilled beyond belief!
posted by JaneM on 9-2-2008 at 9:24 am
@ Ben –
I’ll bet if companies like yours stopped advertising in the phone book, they’d stop making them!
posted by Ransom Riggs on 9-2-2008 at 9:28 am
I don’t know how to get rid of them, but I do know that they make a great asset to any garden. I live in drought-laden Atlanta, and strategically burying water-soaked phonebooks is a great way to keep soil moisture. When it does rain, they soak it up and release it back into the soil slowly, instead of letting the water just run off. They’re biodegradable and unharmful to plants, as well (though, being as massive as they are, take lots and lots of years to biodegrade, making the waste problem of throwing them out that much bigger). Pretty much all commercial ink is soy-based and also unharmful to plants.
posted by JenPo on 9-2-2008 at 9:59 am
My previous duplex-neighbor got the local paper to stop delivering their weekly advertising mini-paper by alternately calling their office to complain and yelling at the delivery person. They would drop one on our side but not theirs. I meant to ask the delivery person to skip ours but never got to it.
posted by JT on 9-2-2008 at 10:09 am
Oh, Luke I can SOOOOO relate.
I used to be the marketing director for a plumbing & HVAC company here in NJ. I HATED the Yellow Pages. The first time I met the guy he called me Hon, his aftershave nearly threw me across the room and he kept throwing numbers at me so that I couldn’t figure out which end was up (it’s only $5 more to add color to your add, to get another listing, to get a bold printing…of course when you add $5 more a month x 12 month x however many books they had out there it was ALOT of money for a little company). And then they consolidated books and promised that we would be the first listed due to our longevity and of course they screwed up and we were the 12th page in….
Oh, God just thinking about this stuff gives me a migraine!
posted by Beth on 9-2-2008 at 10:10 am
I looked in the Yellow Pages directory from AT&T, and there’s a # to call to get more directories, I bet that would be the best contact number to get less directories,too. It’s 1-800-792-2665
posted by Melissa on 9-2-2008 at 10:40 am
I think the best thing to do about phone books would be to distribute them by putting them up on display for free at stores. If you want one, you can have one. That way all the folks that use a paper directory can have one on hand. I still ocassionally use the paper directory. Like when I’m traveling to another city, I love the paper directory that’s often in the hotel. I don’t have internet on hand while I’m on vacation, but often need to find local things. And when I’m at home but not trying to find a particular business’s number, but rather trying to select who to call, like when I needed a new windshield in my truck a few months ago. I don’t have a go-to windshield repair company. I didn’t even know the name of any windshield repair companies. So I used the yellow pages to find them and call around and price compare. But I don’t need a phone book from 3 different companies twice a year. One book from this year (or even last year or so) is plenty.
A lot of people here don’t have internet access. My mother doesn’t use a computer at all, so she always uses the paper directory. I bet a lot of lower income folks that can’t afford computers and internet at home still use the paper directory. Senior citizens,too, are often not computer savvy and don’t use the internet, or don’t feel as comfortable with the internet as with paper directories. I don’t think we need to get rid of them, but we need to change the delivery method.
There’s no need for home delivery at all. Why waste all that gas sending vehicles to every house in town instead of sending a big truck to a few local businesses? Why waste all the money on producing and printing the books and paying people to deliver them? With the added savings of making/letting people pick up their own book they could lower advertising rates and get more advertisers.
posted by Melissa on 9-2-2008 at 11:02 am
There’s no need to keep printing the residential listings at all,though. Next to no one uses those any more. If you want someone to call you at home, you’ll give them your number personally. The phone book should be just for businesses. That would cut the size down easily.
posted by Melissa on 9-2-2008 at 11:09 am
A while back the Stranger in Seattle took 60 of the Dex phone books to their offices and just dumped them in front of the front doors.
slog.thestranger.com/2007/09/returning_phone_books_to_dex
posted by Kurt on 9-2-2008 at 11:37 am
I used the phone book just the other day. I had to call our phone company to let them know that our internet was broken! I should have been organized enough to have the number saved somewhere, but it sure was nice to be able to look it up.
That being said, ONE new book per home every other year would do it! The phone book wars are annoying. I’m just thankful that I don’t live in a large metropolitan area where each company thinks that you might need five, six, or more books per year!
posted by Andrea on 9-2-2008 at 12:07 pm
My neighbor found a website (link is under my name)called yellowpagesgoesgreen.org I don’t really know if it is associated with yellow pages or not but maybe by siging up you will not have to get a yellow pages book anymore.
posted by Bill on 9-2-2008 at 1:19 pm
We get phone calls at work from “your Local Yellow Pages” to “just update your listing” and boom! That’s all the info they need and then in a couple of weeks, you get this invoice of $600 for telling someone on the phone that you allowed it! Outrageous!! Disgusting! We have to becareful to tell everyone not to speak with those people!!
posted by Iris on 9-2-2008 at 1:21 pm
if you use AT&T you can go to realpageslive.com Don’t see anything for other companies though…
posted by Joe on 9-2-2008 at 1:49 pm
JaneM, if you are getting resturant menus rubberbanded to your mailbox (not inside), call your local post office and tell them you are getting them. It’s actually illegal for resturants to do that. Sic the post office on ‘em.
But as for the flyers some you can get rid of but some you can’t. If a mailer is doing a ’saturation mailing’ then every stop on your route gets one. But to get off of many many mailing lists, write to: Mail Preference Service Marketing Assn. PO Box 9008 Farmingdale NY 11735.
posted by Vickey on 9-2-2008 at 2:57 pm
I don’t know how common this is, but I always get two phone books per company: one in English, one in Spanish. Also, I tend to get only Spanish listings from some companies. Even though I don’t speak Spanish, they assume because I’m Hispanic, that I need it. I hate it, and they never seem to listen to me if I tell them to go away.
I happen to like getting the menus from restaurants. It’s a waste, but the smaller companies don’t put their menus online, and I sometimes can’t get out to pick up something for take out. Granted, I don’t get many of these, either.
posted by Nicole on 9-2-2008 at 5:20 pm
Go back to Russia!
posted by Andrew on 9-2-2008 at 6:54 pm
Best bet is to call each of the directory publishers direct. I wrote a post about it at yousnoozeyoulose dot com
posted by Rick Zwetsch on 9-3-2008 at 11:16 am
My husband is still afraid of the internet – he would much prefer to pull out the phone book to look up a number (I’m slowly breaking him of that habit). But they do come in handy when a major storm has come thru and you have no power but do have a cell phone and need to call a roofer. But then sending a text message to google will also find you a number pretty quick but only if you have a cell phone.
We keep a phone book by the phone in the barn so you don’t have to trek all the way inside to find a number and then head back outside to call the repair shop while looking at the broken piece of equipment.
To get rid of the mass of phone books we have we burn them in the boiler – the density ratio of that big book is almost as good as a nice dry pieces of hardwood – they burn along time.
I’m going to have to try burying them in the garden for water purposes (thanks JenPo) – I’ve started to use newspaper for weed control but never thought about using the phone book instead.
posted by Beth on 9-4-2008 at 11:23 am
omg.. the phonebooks. last year i moved from california to texas into an apartment. for 2 months i was sad to not have a phone book, because i didn’t know where anything was or have any important phone numbers. when i finally got one, i was really excited. then a couple weeks later i got another, so i put it in the closet with the first book. i now have 5 different phone books in my closet.
the number of books is annoying, but having one is convenient.
recaptcha: felony stately
posted by tami on 9-8-2008 at 10:33 am
Consumers can “opt out” of receiving telephone books at http://www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org. They will contact the publishers and inform them to stop delivering books. This is a free service for consumers. http://www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org is working with state and local governments on ordinances concerning the delivery of unsolicited telephone books. http://www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org is not against the telephone books but against the delivery of 4 to 5 pounds of paper on people’s door step 5 to 6 times per year and being told it is our responsibility to recycle something we did not ask for. If we need a book we will call. Otherwise I “opt out” from receiving it.
posted by Alex Ireland on 9-10-2008 at 4:30 pm
It used to be the norm that you got a phone book from the phone company when you established a new account but I didn’t get one when I moved to where I am now 3 1/2 years ago.
Maybe because I am in a gated complex, I don’t hardly ever get any phone books but there is a display at a local grocery store with some if I needed one…. mostly, I don’t, I used YellowPages.com
I have found that sometimes a phone book is better for somethings and keep one around just in case but I always recycle it when I get a new one.
posted by Sarah on 1-19-2009 at 3:47 pm
if it were less profitable there would be less publishers and less frequent renewals. maybe the economic situation will force a strike by advertisers and help this happen. the bad economy could be good for the environment, and benefit advertisers in the long run! i also like the idea of only distributing them via convenient pick-up locations, and hotels for travelers; the decreased distribution would also drive down profits and have the same effect.
posted by ir_kr on 2-21-2009 at 9:49 pm