All our left over phone books sure came in handy earlier this week when we ran out of firewood while waiting for the power to be restored ...

I completely agree. While I am commenting, a question: what does the Stranger do with its unclaimed copies? I once spotted a paper distributor remove the old papers from a streetbox (or whatever they are called), dump them in the trashcan, and replace them with the new issue. Problem is, I can't recall if it was The Stranger or the Weekly. I was going to write a letter suggesting they at least recycle them, but I never got around to it. I wondered if this had to do with increasing "readership".

hmmm... maybe it is trespassing and littering...

Oh, this is SO annoying. There's nobody over the age of 40 living in my building. We do not need the damned phone books. Such a waste.

I completely concur with this rant. Someone must be using these books, though, or no one would advertise in them.

Y'know, I'd love to chime in with the value of the phone book in light of the recent weather attacks, but they were well nigh useless. Using the two behemoths that had been dropped at my door the weekend before, I was unable to find the numbers for the Seattle Public Library, my ISP (one had it under a two year old name) or, in a case of delicious irony, the internet cafe that I'd been to earlier in the day.

Yes! Firewood substitute! We have a pile too!

I've never liuved anywhere without a 100 lb pile of free phonebooks in the deal.

I love the 9idea of putting them on Qwest and Verizon's doorsteps en mass.

Just write to them and ask to be removed from their distribution list.

http://www.yellowbook.com/ContactUs

Recycle them and get a life ........talk about fixated nini/mini minds and concerns

remember there is masturbation for some of that idle time in you life

Yes, recycle nd move on.....beat off a lot in the new year

Petenice: The point is that it should be an opt-in system, not an opt-out system. The form you linked to is just for one of many "yellow pages" type phone books that are now distributed. And do you see a "stop delivery" option? They have a vested interest in not explicitly offering this option. If you've got time, can you also find stop delivery links for Qwest books and Verizon books (and however many others there are out there)?

Schiffman: That attitude just goes to show what a placebo recycling is. Stopping unnecessary waste before it gets to the recycling system is the key. If something isn't needed, it shouldn't be produced. (Okay, considering this is the Christmas season in America, everyone can just stop laughing at that last line now.) More people should take the time to both beat off often and do what they can to change things that aren't right. Isn't that what leads to a happy life?

pile them up in the middle of the nearest round-a-bout. i hear that's what the kids do these days...

#9, thans for taking the time out of your busy schedule (practicing what you preach).

Wow, #4 what's that supp to mean, that people over 40 are Luddite idiots who don't use computers? We're the ones that invented the damn things...

I like and use my yellow pages. It's easier and quicker than Qwestdex, the online abortion of a lookup site that keeps trying to tell me that East Bumfuck, Kansas is "in the surrounding area".

But I only want one, and I want it from the real phone company, which is still Qwest (Qwaste, Qworst, whatever you want to call them). The one from Verizon is CRAP. It doesn't help that it's delivered by illegal immigrants from California (I saw their van the other day, Cali plates).

PS -- yellow pages serve a valuable function in landfills. The annual broad band of yellow is clearly visible and serves as a dating technique, like the rings of a tree.

Who needs the print Yellow Pages? US adults referenced them over 15 BILLION times last year. And that’s just the print versions. 90% of all adults reference them at least once a year, 75% in a typical month, and 50+% on average month. How about on average 1.4X each week? And let’s remember that not everyone has Internet access to reference those websites you are talking about.

How many dead trees? Interesting thing is the total amount of paper that the Yellow Pages industry uses in one year (a good percentage of which is recycled), is far less than the newspaper industry uses in just ONE WEEK. If you find that hard to believe, just take a look at the Sunday paper and do the math. Compare that with that books you recieve…

There is no other directional media that can provide buyers the information they need when they need it about local businesses than the Yellow Pages. It is truly the original local search engine….

Ken: Even taking into account the usage statistics you reference, it still doesn't answer the question of why they are given to everyone regardless of need. If the yellow pages industry was really concerned about reducing waste, why don't they make the books opt-in? Something tells me that if they weren't distributed in a blanket manner, people would find other ways to get the information they needed. Maybe in ways that didn't include paper. And that would make those numbers go way down. But then the industry wouldn't be able to give the numbers you're providing to advertisers.

This really seems to come down to a business model built on giving people something they don't necessarily need. And killing trees in the process. And that's the difference between the yellow pages and newspapers. Newspapers adjust constantly to need based on demand.

I live in a third world country, a lot less technological than the US, where older people absolutely DEPEND on the yellow pages. However, every year by mid december, the telephone company would give you an automatic call offering you not to send the yellow pages but a cd of them or nothing. If you accept, you can win prizes. It's been working so far.

The world doesn't need three copies of the exact same info...let your local businesses know how you feel so maybe they'll stop advertising in redundant and dying forms of information...all this excess paper is just a waste...

I was lucky enough to be at home when they tried to deliver 28 books. I sent them on their way minus the unwanted dump.

Jude@2 - In regards to freebie papers going into City trash cans: I doubt that the City (or the City's garbage collectors) would let that type of mass and easily identifiable "personal garbage" disposal continue without comment. Newsprint is heavy. It's expensive to dump and cheaper to recycle.

A few weeks ago, I was subjected to an online survey about the yellow pages. When asked which I preferred, I did my best to explain that I couldn't figure out which was which and that all I needed was (at most) one version.

So which of the too-many versions is the "real" YP I remember from the days of Ma Bell? That's the only one of them I want to have gathering dust on a shelf.

People in poorer neighborhoods, where computers and internet come at a premium, disagree with this assessment.

People still use phone books. And vendors still do get referrals thanks to phone book ads.

Sorry, tech savvy hipsters. Life is a shade different outside of your bubble.

i too live in a 3d world country, but this one has no phone books to speak of. People just call directory assistance or look it up online. Kinda strange.

uh, why do poor, tech free people need 3 copies of the exact same info? the point is; the world doesn't need all these different phone books...it's not like getting different view points from different newspapers; it's all the same lists of phone numbers...