Comments on: Stop Incessant Phone Book Deliveries

By: Nicole

Nicole — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:59:48 +0000

Here’s what I find horrifying – 3 times a year, our apartment building gets delivered roughly 500 copies of the City of Toronto phone directory (which is a 4-inch-thick tome of a phone book). The building administration keep the books stacked by the front entrance, and whoever wants one can pick it up and take it. Here’s the rub – the vast majority of them sit there abandoned for weeks or months on end, until someone hauls them away to be recycled. Why? Because nobody is taking them.

News flash, business owners and corporate dinosaurs: the vast majority of the public DO have Internet and DO use Google for the majority of their business-finding needs. Why should the public tolerate continued waste (of ANYTHING) because a select few are unable to adjust to a rapidly changing social and environmental reality? I can think of no good reason.

By: Uncle B

Uncle B — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 19:42:53 +0000

The Canadian Government has legalized Hemp farming! SEE: http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/high.....emp_e.html for proof! Next: All phone books should be printed on Hemp-Fiber based paper, a mega-recyclable sort of paper! nothing would be considered waste at all! Some American Shanty-towns and tent cities use phone books for fuel to keep warm at night – a noble use for the “extras” don’t you think! Don’t worry, in a more hungry world, as is befalling us now, little will be wasted! We may even end up putting down cash payments for phone books and receiving return refunds for old ones like we do beer cans and pop bottles in some places! Armies of unemployable “Legacy Workers” from the industries gone to Asia will soon run the streets! They will certainly scavage and clean things up considerably!

By: Eco Yellow Pages

Eco Yellow Pages — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:21:47 +0000

Check out http://www.ecoyp.com/stop-delivery-of-phone-books/ for additional tips and info on stopping the unsolicited delivery of phone books. Our belief is that printed phone books provide a valuable service for those who want them, but are nothing but a waste for those of us who do all our local business look-ups online. Thanks for bringing attention to this issue!

As for businesses owners, yellow pages advertising certainly offers value to *some* businesses. But many are no longer seeing the value. For example, a survey by TD Securities of over 500 advertisers in Canada found that a third of clients plan to reduce or cancel their spending on phone books, and half the companies surveyed did not believe that Yellow Pages was critical to the success of their business. More at the following link:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com.....streetwise

By: Tezcatbus

Tezcatbus — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 02:07:44 +0000

“Have any of you bashers asked the local business owners if the phone books are useless. Most business owners spend a large chunk of their advertising dollars on a yellow page ad.”

Oh dear Jesus, won’t someone please think of the poor business owners who are still throwing thousands of dollars down the drain on paper advertising very few people want, while their Geocities website full of busted links and clipart that looks like it was designed by a blind dog on an off day languishes in limbo?

Get with the times. You need to advertise where your customer are, not waste your money on a brick of paper delivered to a residence that will trip over it a few times on the way to the computer and then throw it away.

By: Maxym

Maxym — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:51:18 +0000

Thanks for the post.

You can also sign do not mail petition (like Do Not Call National Petition)

I did some search online and this is the best resource so far available online (correct me if I am wrong). I have done this 5 months ago and my mailbox is literally empty ( I have paperless billing and also opted out from various mail lists) I check my mail twice a month now. It is beautiful.

I even took the letter from samples provided and wrote it to a local Chinese restaurant that keeps putting fliers in my door. They stopped too in the whole subdivision.

http://awakening.weebly.com/stop-junk-mail.html

I even opted out from the yellow book. What do I need it for, since the internet is right here.

By: Barry Kearns

Barry Kearns — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:50:48 +0000

Have any of you bashers asked the local business owners if the phone books are useless. Most business owners spend a large chunk of their advertising dollars on a yellow page ad. They rely on distribution to get their name out there. Yes some people do use phone books otherwise how could companies like DEX show a 14 to 1 return on an ad average. Business owners spend hundreds of dollars per month, get them to advertise some other way and the books would no longer be needed. To many people have a negative veiw of phone books because they lack the insight as to why they are actually being distributed, it the people of your own community that promote the whole industry. They are your next door neighbors, they are they people that you rely on for just about everything you consume, they are the business owners, the very people that keep your community alive. So in conclusion find out all the aspects to an industry before you go out saying that its a useless function, ask the people who actually advertise if the books are useless. I think you’ll find that they advertise in the book because it does work.

By: Alex Ireland

Alex Ireland — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:24:41 +0000

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.

By: Diane K. Danielson

Diane K. Danielson — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:37:10 +0000

How about an eco-tax on smoking, junk food, beverages, phone companies and mailing advertisers. Why? Because whenever I dogsit Chester, my favorite 90-lb Labradoodle, we go for daily walks along the shore road in my town and I use one of his poop bags to pick up trash. 60% of the trash is always beverage related (coffee cups, slurpees, beer cans, soda bottles, water bottles, straws, juice boxes, etc.), 20% is junkfood related; 10% is junk mail and parts of phone books, and 10% is cigarette butts (which is only 10% due to their small size), and while I don’t pick them up — too many, too gross — it still baffles me why smokers don’t think it’s littering to toss their butts on the ground.

By: artbrock

artbrock — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:34:39 +0000

I’m happy to set up a web site where people can sign up on an opt-out list and we’d send regular updates to the phone book companies.

Then when people receive phone books even though they’ve explicitly opted out, I believe we should cite the company for littering and get them fined. Who else is allowed to come and dump a pile of unwelcome trash on your doorstep? The only way to get them to stop doing this is if it costs them cash. Let’s make it do just that.

With proper promotion, I’ll bet we could get 10,000 citations per phone book per distribution cycle, at about $100 per littering citation they might start listening to $1,000,000 in fines.

It’s good revenue for our municipal governments and good feedback to the companies that won’t listen when we tell them not to dump their junk at our businesses and residences.

Who wants to play?

By: trsh

trsh — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:22:44 +0000

If you’re looking for an interesting way to recycle phone books, contact a local zoo or parrot rescue – parrots and raptors alike need to be constantly entertained, and phone books alike make GREAT toys for the birds to shred to pieces.