Some time back, only one phone company operated in the United States. Law makers decided it had grown too big, broke it apart and made room for competition. This was bad for the environment.
With only one phone company, there was only one phone book publisher. Over recent weeks, I’ve received phone books from at least three publishers. Most of these have gone straight from my doorstep into recycle bins. I didn’t even crack the covers.
Thanks to the internet, I rarely look at a phone book anymore. I’ll bet I’m not alone. Think of all the trees that have died in order to supply paper pulp to manufacture books people don’t use.
Wouldn’t it be better if phone book publishers were required to ask consumers if they want their books instead of assuming that they do. This would save countless trees and prevent much of the pollution of streams that results from paper manufacturing.
There ought to be a law. There really should.
A miscellany of book reviews, rambles, opinions and outright lies
I completely agree. I can't even remember the last time I picked up a 'phone book to look up a number. Here, we get two directories and a heap of business directories and town guides, all of which go unused and have to be recycled.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just 'phone books either. I hate to think of all the books in general that are published every year, only to sit on bookstore shelves for months before being pulped. We humans seem to be very adept at producing more than we could ever need.
Where I live in the country, they drop them off for several residents at the end of the road. They lay there for two or three weeks until somebody comes by and hauls them to the dump before they're covered in snow.
ReplyDeleteWhere I live phone books get thrown in a pile at the end of our dirt road and the residents are supposed to pick theirs up.
ReplyDeleteThe books stay there for two or three weeks until somebody hauls them to the dump.