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Time to Ban Phone Books

casaguy

casaguy

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With the war on plastic bags well underway I think it's time for this...

Yellow Pages. White Pages. What an incredible and shameful waste of paper. When was the last time you relied on one? 1999? An informal survey of friends tells me I'm not alone in my concerns. Except for many seniors who aren't part of the wired world, would anybody miss them if they disappeared?

How about one per building instead of one per apartment?

DSCN4682.jpg


As usual, new ones have been piled up in my lobby for a week or so now and they're not exactly going fast. (And my building is full of mostly older folks).

What should be done? Discuss.
 
Yes yes, absolutely yes. They're glorified flyers - heavy and useless, doing little more than taking up space.

You don't need to ban them - just make it so people actually have to REQUEST them. And charge those people five bucks.
 
Print far fewer of them - and make them available to those who request one.

They're recyclable, fortunately.
 
THey have been printing far fewer of them from what I can tell.
Back when I first moved into my apartment building in 1997, the entire mail room would be filled with them. One for each apartment.
Now when they come out, we have maybe 100 of them available.
They should just make them available only at the Bell stores, and if you need one, you can pick it up.
 
Agree. I see these piles of phone books around various places, mouldering away. I haven't opened one in at least a decade. But I suspect the advertising rates they charge are based on circulation numbers, so if they print fewer copies they'd have to charge less for advertising. And a phone book sitting in a stack is technically "in circulation", right?

Next up let's get those flyer companies that wrap their flyers in plastic. I never know whether or not I should put them into the recycling bin in the mail room, so I instead pile them on the counter with all the other rejected ones. I suspect they all end up in a landfill, both the plastic and the paper they contain. Pointless waste all round.

Finally, let's march on Telus and demand they they stop putting those stupid white flyer inserts with the lemmings (or ferrets or mir cats or whatever they hell they are) inside every piece of newsprint in the Toronto area. I swear I've been recycling 3 or 4 of those every week for 5 years. I don't even know what they're trying to sell me... cell phones? Cell phone plans? Hot dogs? I don't care anymore.
 
At least the ad on the last page of last year's yellow pages was good for a laugh or two.
 
Funny a thread would be started on this subject, this is a bit of a peeve of mine too. My building has 424 units and each year the lobby is crammed easily with 300-400 of these things which sit around for months until they are finally disposed of. Only someone without Internet access would need or want one of these, www.yellowpages.ca/ is as convenient and presumably updated regularly.
 
As already mentioned I think fewer of them are being printed. Only a small pile of them come into my building now, far fewer than the number of units.

On the other hand, don't fool yourself that Canada 411 is the answer, at least not yet. They lack an awful lot of listings, and not just the new ones either. Time after time I find nothing on Canada 411, yet a listing will be in the phone book. If a major upgrade of this website could be achieved, it could replace the phone book for most people.
 
I still pick up and use (or allow myself to use) the dead-tree YPs, just like I still like reading dead-tree newspapers or using dead-tree street atlases. Just not frequently; but it's nice to know it's there by my side, so to speak.

And all in all, it's a far cry from a decade ago in more ways than one: remember how the 90s saw a rather cheesy plethora of competing directories which probably did its part to corrupt the gravitas that the good, solid annual household Yellow Pages used to embody. So, if it all boils down to a return to one Yellow Pages and only one Yellow Pages, I can accept that. And once it wears out and/or the next year's edition arrives, bluebox it; the cycle continues...
 
PukeGreen said:
Maybe... but only if the phone system is still running, and if you have an old-school phone that doesn't require electricity, and the person you are phoning also has an old-school phone. :)
Click to expand...

golodhendil said:
^ I think he was trying to mean, it's good for using as a fuel to start fires for lighting?
Click to expand...

wrong. i was talking about how you can use it for self defense against looters. ;)


PukeGreen, the POTS needs electricity to work which is supplied by a battery backup system during a power outage. depending on how many people use the land lines determines how long the battery backup system will function. a regular corded phone will work during a power outage even if it has a power cord to power parts of the phone such as an LCD screen.

if the power is out and you need to call someone for whatever reason, a phone book could come in handy. but then again, you can always call 411. but if you're shopping around getting quotes for a plumber lets say because a pipe burst or something (because prices can vary large from one plumber to the next and you seek one who is affordable), 411 could be expensive if you gotta call a bunch of them.

also, 411 operators could be overwhelmed during a blackout/emergency because most people wouldn't have access to the internet and its web based directories.
 
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