Stumping to Cut Down on Phonebooks

So, I get home from work today and there’s a phone book on my doorstep. Well, sadly for this book I happen to live in the Information Age and I can get my information from the Internet faster than I can find it in that book, and without getting printing ink on my fingers doing it.

That made me think – especially as I threw it on top of my 3-volume set of Denver area phonebooks. Why do I even have these things? I can’t be alone in this idea. In this era of “go green” and “save the forests” legislation, why do I need 8000 pages of phonebook in my closet if their only purpose is to sit there for a year and be picked up for recycling?

I want to stump for the equivalent of a “do not call” list for the delivery of phone books. I look around my neighborhood and just imagine how much money, effort, energy, etc. can be saved by only giving people who want these things a copy of them.

In the Information Age – where 411 is being replaced by a free service on wireless phones, where dexonline.com is faster than walking downstairs to the closet, where Google can give me directions, advice, reviews, and customer feedback – why do these dinosaurs exist?

Are you with me? Can we really cut down on printing these by offering a demand estimate per locality at press time? After the jump, you can read my letter to Tom Tancredo, the House rep for my district.

this is the letter I wrote to my Congressman. Yes, it’s a little weak, but it’s a tiny little webform that is impossible to scroll so I had to basically remember what I’d said. (note to self: next time use notepad first)
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Dear Tom,
Thank you for what you do for our district in Colorado.

I would like to place an idea in your pocket which appeals to Coloradoans concerned about our environment.

In my kitchen pantry rest six Denver area phone directories, all of which are current, and none of which have ever been used. Safely you can assume that this print material is wasted until the expense of recycling is incurred. I venture that I am not alone in this position; being the Information Age, I can find more complete information faster with the Internet, including white pages entries for residences. The printed phone directory is quickly becoming an obsolete item in households all over Colorado, just as it is in mine.

Considering the costs unique to printed directories over their online counterparts: advertising sales and layouts, print layouts, materials, deliveries, etc. it becomes clear that, even for my neighborhood in Centennial, the price tag to keep these books updated is far beyond their value to those whom they are delivered.

My solution for this growing problem is a simple concept. Residents should have the ability to “opt out” of printed manual delivery – an idea so very similar to the national “do not call” registry. Not only does this concept help reduce unnecessary costs for those who distribute these directories, it also helps the distributor more correctly estimate demand by locality, which further reduces waste and excess material expenditures.

I thank you for reading my suggestion; I welcome your feedback and I look forward to the future of this concept.

Sincerely,
Patrick Davis-Urquhart
Centennial, CO