Daily Loaf

Once a year on a nice sunny day, you pull up to your house and there is a yellow cellophane bag sitting on your porch with the annual telephone directories inside of it. You sigh. You take it in to your house or apartment and figure out where to put it, never knowing if you will ever actually use it. It collects dust and you usually throw it out in 3 months after you see it wedged in the pantry or under your bed. Sound familiar? You are not alone.

In this computer and tech savvy world, most people generally don’t think to use their phone books anymore as their first source of information. At work or at home, many people will check a telephone number or address through their computer or even more likely, their cell phone.

Plus, these phone books are made from trees. A lot of trees. According to banthephonebook.org, the production of phone books cut down up to 5 million trees each year. That’s a lot of trees to make someone’s makeshift coffee table. Not to mention other costs to taxpayers like added recycling efforts and the financial impact of printing and delivering these bulky information books to your front door or office.

Telephone directories have become a thing of the past. Luckily, their are people out there trying to cut out this wasteful production process. If you visit the banthephonebook.org website, they have started an online petition to create an opt-in delivery program for the white pages phone book. They also have a Facebook community to join in on to throw around ideas of how they can get the public involved to stop this unnecessary production.

For now, their advice is to sign the petition and use online/telephone mediums for your name, number and address search – and don’t forget to recycle the old ones that are stuffed under your couch or dresser.

Posted in Activism, Green Community, Green Living | Leave a comment