And to do it year after year.Ģ.) I don’t follow your second point about combined volumes. What’s more, recyling is no panacea it’s very wasteful to produce unwanted items only to pitch them immediately into the recylcing bin. The recycling rate in Seattle is probably higher, but remember that the law applies to the whole state of Washington, which generally recycles much less than Seattle. Let me take a crack at answering some of your questions.ġ.) The recycling figure is, I believe, a national figure. Getting the phone companies to provide convenient opt-ins, when they want to drop the White Pages entirely, will be like getting tobacco companies to stop marketing to young people. In my experience, Century Link is already enforcing a de facto opt-in–not delivering unless you call each year. But phone-bill notices won’t help much with auto-pay and online billing, and annual check-off postcards will get lost with the other, ahem, junk mail. Sightline folks do offer some good opt-in ideas. I’d still favor giving the opt-out option more time to work. Many good ideas have also faded, such as the clotheslines that Sightline & I both champion. That’s not to say they’re not fading from use. I suspect we’d all like to see everyone’s numbers included except our own.Īs you know, I’ve written on the ways that phonebooks can sometimes be faster, more effective, and maybe even more resource-efficient than online searches ( !-/). A comprehensive cellphone directory would be useful, and intrusive. * “More and more people with cell phones & unlisted numbers means that the White Pages are gradually becoming less useful.” Indeed–and so are online directories, which also lack cell and unlisted numbers. How many other markets receive similar combined volumes, and how many in that 14 percent have switched over to them rather than dropping out of paper? * “The share of households relying on stand-alone residential white pages fell from 25 percent to 11 percent, just between 20.” Century Link now delivers the Seattle White and Yellow Pages bound together, in addition to the standalone–evidently a step toward eliminating the standalone. * “The EPA reports that only 37 percent of phone directories (by weight) are recycled.” A national figure? Seattle’s overall recycling is significantly higher, and its phonebook recycling rate may be higher still, since the books are easier to recycle than many other materials. the stats you cite, beyond andyg’s trenchant remarks on the 8 percent who seem to fall between the opt-in cracks. Hat tip to Jeanette Henderson for the video idea.Ĭlark–A couple questions re. Update by EdP: For more detail on the history of the law-and how we can change it-see my earlier post on the subject: Why You Can’t Stop the White Pages. So I’m kind of in the same situation as that absolutely, 100% for real guy in the video: I wish someone would just go ahead and change the law already. AT&T has reported that only 3 percent of residents in Austin and Atlanta asked for the white pages after the company initiated by-request-only delivery.A Gallup survey, as reported here, found that the share of households relying on stand-alone residential white pages fell from 25 percent to 11 percent, just between 20.The EPA reports that only 37 percent of phone directories (by weight) are recycled. (Of course, the survey was paid for by an internet white pages provider - but their findings are consistent with other evidence.)
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