Letter of the week, 3/24/08: Do we really need delivered phone books?

[David]

Wasted phone books
Editor

’Tis the season (yes, I know it’s not Christmas!) to see yellow plastic bags containing phone books on the ground in front of every home, near their mailboxes and driveways, waiting to be taken inside and used. Some have been there for not days, or weeks, but months.

Having been in the elements, bags are now ripped open, some run over by cars, because we took the blue bags containing phone books in a few months before. Some didn’t even take those in. I don’t know about everyone else, but I don’t need an updated book (especially the big yellow pages) every year. What a waste of paper!

If someone needs a book, there should be a place to go and get one. The litter law should be enforced on the companies that throw these bags on our property. As for my yellow bag, it’s awaiting its fate on my porch.

The next time I go to the dump, that’s where it will go – unused and wasted because I didn’t need it.
ROSE SCHEDE, WALLINGFORD

[jma]

Last year we ended up sucking the phone book through the snowblower!

[eds]

Mine ended up tossed on the side of the road and taken away by the city snowplow. Good riddance!

[leherissierm]

The phone books I have are still from the 90's...and I dont think I have looked at one since then either! I would think that most people don't have much of a use for them at all, considering you can access white pages and yellow pages on the internet.

[Chriss P]

They don't make phonebooks like they used to.

[jma]

Don't use them for booster seats anymore, either! (How did we survive childhood without all the specialty gadgets used today??)

[Eastside Bill]

Unnecessary in this day and age.

[collie]

I still use them but they seem to come around so fast. Probably should still be available at some convenient local spot for us to pick up or call and order if we want one, but waster paper if people aren't using them.

[RC12L4]

Instead of going to the dump why not just drive to the phone company and dump them in their parking lot with a note attached stating "No Thanks".

[eds]

Because the irony would be that you would be cited for littering :D!

[Fit 2 Print]

Almost everyone has the internet. It's so easy to look up businesses and individuals through the e-white or e-yellow pages. Also, there are many sites, such as "switchboard.com" where one can look up any desired phone-related information, including "reverse lookup."

I say, save the trees and eliminate the needless phone books (or have the phone company send them ONLY when requested by individual users).

[RC12L4]

Almost everyone has the internet. It's so easy to look up businesses and individuals through the e-white or e-yellow pages. Also, there are many sites, such as "switchboard.com" where one can look up any desired phone-related information, including "reverse lookup."

I say, save the trees and eliminate the needless phone books (or have the phone company send them ONLY when requested by individual users).

My grandmother is 82, she doesn't use the internet.

[tjohnl]

there was a drug store chain in California that would give you a free ice cream cone if you recycled a phone book.

[jma]

To get phone book delivery stopped, contact the following:
ATT-Yellow Pages 1-800-479-2977
Yellow Book 1-800-929-3556, Press 2