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 years - I take them straight to recycling. They are dinosaurs.
This got me thinking - shouldn't I be able to opt-out of automatic delivery? Wouldn't there be a significant impact if everyone stopped receiving phonebooks and yellow pages? Apparently the major players pumped out 540 million directories this year.
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.
AT&T/YellowPages (formerly SBC and Bell South):
1.866.329.7118
Verizon (Idearc):
1.800.888.8448
Dex:
1.877.243.8339
Yellow Book:
1.800.373.3280 or 1.800.373.2324
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.
PaperlessPetition.org is one of the only resources I found who is working on this issue. From their site:
...expedite an end to this needless environmental waste, educate consumers on free and easy alternatives, and shed light on the growing inaccuracy of readership statistics that drive advertisers to still invest in this antiquated medium.
If you're interested, you can get a badge here.
