Last week many households found the arrival of new telephone directory books from AT&T. If your household is anything like mine, you take these books unopened and unused and deposit them directly in the recycle bins outside the AT&T building on Broad street. The books take up space and sometimes the printed directory can quickly become out of date. Sometimes phone numbers can be found in older versions of the directory, and usually phone numbers can be found in online directories. The books are obsolete and unwieldy.
Judging from the pile of brand new, unopened phone directories I saw in the recycle bins today, I am thinking that many people may agree that these directories are a huge waste of resources. There's the paper, the energy that it takes to print them, the energy that it takes to deliver them, and the energy that it takes to recycle them.
I understand that many businesses may pay for advertising in the directories and may count on customers finding them there. However, if people are tossing the book without ever using it they certainly are not going to be a good target audience for this type of advertisement. The piles speak for themselves; people are looking up numbers online and in other sources so there's no reason why advertising can't make the same shift.
I plan to call AT&T to find out if they can put me on a list for "no printed phone directory please" so that I will not receive the books in the future. It can't hurt to make sure that AT&T hears from everyone who thinks that the phone directories are a waste of resources. Collectively we can send a message that waste reduction is something we care about in our community. I found some AT&T numbers which I listed below including a couple local ones. The first number listed is specifically pertaining to the directory books. There are also some online contact options at att.com
Directory Resource Center: 1-800-922-0008
1-800-288-2020
344-5880
346-4311
With competition from other, more local, directories and from looking up business telephone numbers on-line and from calling 800-GOOG411, AT+T seems to be pursuing a strategy that can only work for them in the short run. When so many of their Yellow Pages books are thrown out, how long will potential advertisers equate the number of distributed Yellow Pages books with the number of persons who may see their ad?
ReplyDeleteWithout debating the pros and cons, my question is how do you know the new books are in the orange bags and not last year's books? That's the basic premise of your argument.
ReplyDeleteI signed up to not receive a phone book, but I still got one. It seems they may have had more than they needed.
ReplyDeleteWithout digging through the bins and taking a survey of each individual book in there, I still maintain that the books are on the way to becoming obsolete, and represent a huge amount of wasted energy and resources considering the manufacturing, transportation and recycling of them. My argument is in no way scientific. We don't know how many people may have thrown the books (new or old) in the regular recycling or the regular trash, or how many just sit in cabinets or closets unused so therefore still represent a waste of resources anyway. Ultimately this is only my opinion. If I had the time, I would research it completely... hey I would even write an in-depth investigative journalism piece. I still maintain that it makes sense to inform AT&T that you do not want or use the book if that is the case because that sends a collective message. We should have the option of declining if we are interested in enouraging a reduction or elimination of the amount of these [useless in my opinion] books.
ReplyDeleteTrue confessions: I've been throwing them in the trash. I'll make the call...
ReplyDeleteYou can also try opting out through this website: http://www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org/stop-yellow-pages/
ReplyDelete