This package was dropped on our door step today and it took me a couple of takes to realize it was the Yellow Pages. I had forgotten about last year’s copy that is collecting dust on a top cabinet in our kitchen. I looked around and a red plastic bag with a 1000+ page book was on every one of my neighbors’ doorsteps.
Not only do I not use the paper version of the Yellow Pages, I had a suspicion producing these piles of paper was probably not great for the environment either. Turns out I am not the only one at least a little troubled by this. According to YellowPagesGoesGreen (yes, doesn’t everything have a website these days), to produce 500 million books:
- 19 million trees need to be harvested
- 1.6 billion pounds of paper are wasted
- 7.2 million barrels of oil are misspent in their processing (not including the wasted gas used for their delivery to your doorstep)
- 268,000 cubic yards of landfill are taken up
- 3.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity are squandered
If you want to opt-out of getting the Yellow Pages, it seems you can opt-out here. I have just completed this form and hope next year, I will not have one of these atrocities dropped on my doorstep again. 