It only happens once a year, so to harrass the city and/or get the law/lawyers involved is really making a mountain out of a molehill. Calling it 'offensive littering' is really going too far. I do not think a lawyer woth their salt would really want to go after this - it is just not worth his/her time and effort to persue such trivial nonsense.

Just live with it, throw it away/recyle the darn thing and be done with it. There are better items to get extremely uptight over or get very worried about.

Sheesh.

Actually, now that I think about it...this situation resembles the same situation when canvassers knock on your door when you have a "no solicitors" sign on your house telling them to go away and leave you alone.

So I guess the question is: How does it feel?

“Phone books ought to go the way of horse-drawn carriages, manual typewriters, and leather football helmets.”

Ah, excuse me, but there is nothing at all wrong with manual typewriters I use two, a circa 1940 Royal portable, and a 1959 Royal desk model, use them particularly when I’m writing for pleasure. No on/off switches, and no power except for my imagination and fingers.

Carriages, leather helmets and phone books are another matter.

I agree. I got mine, brought it inside and tossed it on the floor of my living room. Been sitting there for a few days, still in the plastic bag.

I wanted to toss it out right away, but that would be a waste.

I did some quick research, and as I suspected, the paper in phone books is too fine and colored to be easily recycled. In fact including phone books in normal paper recycling can often contaminate batches of paper to be recycled, reducing the amount of paper saved.

What can phone books be recycled for? Other phone books of course! Exactly what I want more of!

Of course several sites said that individual cities, counties, or states have places to recycle phone books. But the kicker is that not all places do it, and the places that do require you to hunt down a recycling center that accepts them and drop it off yourself.

This raises the opportunity cost of recycling something you didn't want, and never used, in the first place to be pretty high for a five pound block of un-wanted junk that is already outdone by an easier to use and more frequently updated internet.

Phone books are all advertising and no creative content. They're like newspapers or magazines without pesky writers to hire, and without having to convince anyone to buy the things. They're just page after page of display ads and paid expanded listings on the cheapest possible paper. The profit margins are massive. As long as that's the case, millions of pounds of trees are going to be thrown on America's doorsteps, even if they all gather dust or go straight to the trash as people look up businesses online instead. The sheer waste of it all is enough for at least a national opt-out list.

On a related note, to stop that stupid FOODday/This Week from landing on your door, call 503-221-8240.

Oh, and I make a point not take print editions of publications. It's all online, where I and the rest of the planet don't have to deal with the waste. On occasion I'll browse something at a bus stop, even take it on board with me, but it goes right back into the next box where it doesn't count as circulation.

Just because we, who read blogs, don't use phone books at all doesn't mean that they aren't very important for some. Not everybody has the internet or uses Google to find things.

That being said, I would love a way to be able to opt out of getting these.

I do use the phone book occasionally, but mostly I agree that they're a huge, largely pointless waste, as long as people have other more efficient and effective ways to access numbers they need. My most recent one has been sitting out on the porch where it was delivered/dumped a week ago.

Is it actually possible to stop phone books from being delivered to you without giving up your land line?

I was lucky enough to catch them in the act at one of my apartment buildings this year and turned them away. I wasn't so lucky at my other buildings with Yellow Book, alas.
Anyway, I'll be dumping about 70 of these books at Yellow Books at their nearest office next week (McGillvray Blvd in Vancouver). Ironically, I used www.yellowbook.com to look them up.

It appears a Portland city council candidate is on your side.

I found plenty of complaints about this online, but nobody has a solution. Calling and asking them to stop doesn't work. (It will keep coming, but they'll assure you that you're on their do-not-deliver list.) Even cancelling phone service doesn't stop the books. They're in the ad business, not the customer service business. Their circulation is more important that your satisfaction.

I belive the term is "expression" - Just as knocking on your door is considered "expression", the phone companies would somehow sucessfully argue that giving you the phone book is an "expression". The bottom line - there nothing you can do about it, so just live with it.

By the way, if Amanda's reading, she can secure my vote if she adds to her platform against mass corporate littering those slick oblong newsweekly inserts that grace our city's sidewalks (mainly for tobacco companies to get around regulations against public advertising).

...and since they have ads in them, they would be considered "expression' as well.

Well then, Eric, I guess I shall just accept a pole shoved up my hindquarters as long as there's a corporate logo on it.

Amanda had an idea in the comments: why not make the deliverers come back around the next day and pick up all the phone books that remain? If you're on vacation, for example, you can stop mail and newspaper delivery, but the phone books will still come, a bright yellow sign announcing to all that YOU ARE NOT HOME.

Amanda says she got on the horn with Saltzman (franchises, sustainability, waste management) who said he'd work with the Office of Sustainable Development, but that was seven months ago.

To elaborate at my more colorful retort to Eric earlier, there are plenty of regulations already about what is and isn't an acceptible form of advertisement. And it seems that the interest in providing a control against litter and waste would have merit in regulating the unwanted delivery of publications onto private property, especially when the property owner expressly demands that delivery cease. Call it trespassing, littering, whatever, there seems to be a reasonable legal defense for a delivery opt-out list. Also, it seems that there would be a legal means to prevent littering the sidewalk. That's not a protected form of speech. It's abuse of public property.

At least in this part of rural Oregon, phone books aren't delivered to the house. When I go to the post office to pick up my mail, I can choose to pick up a phone book from a box there.

I opted out of buying DEX space 2 years ago -- too damn expensive.

I shifted instead to a neighborhood newspaper (and am waiting for a call-back from St. Johns Cinema where you can buy an ad slide for $100/month which rotates 8 - 10 times before every movie starts).

Just the newspaper alone has increased my volume substantially and at 13% of the DEX cost.

I have to confess that decision came about when I looked at the renewal contract for DEX, saw that 2+ million books will be distributed with my ad and realized 90% of those people have probably never set foot in my neighborhood.

Before I quit using their services, they came out with a "neighborhood" directory option. Only problem is -- you have to buy the metro as in order to get into the neighborhood directory.

Finally, to complicate their wasteful complicity, I have more than 1 line for my phone service (a local provider) and 4 different phone stations in my office.

When the DEX books come around, they leave me six (6!) sets (white and yellow pages). Thank God I have a large recycle bin in the back.

Randy2

I hate the constant stream of phonebooks as much as the next person. However, there is a use for them for some people. For example, my grandmother-83 years old- will not touch a computer, and really prefers using the phone book. I'm sure there are others like her. They're also handy for having little ones sit up higher at the dinner table. We've used our old ones as kindling starter in the fireplace and in a charcoal grill chimney. My ex used to save them up for target practice out in the desert.

For those of us who never use phone books, and never want to see them again, why not create an "opt-out" system? The system would allow Oregonians to "opt-out" of receiving phone books online. All phone book companies would be required to insert a postage-paid postcard in the front of each book allowing the receiver to "opt-out" by mail, if they don't use a computer. Then, those companies who continue to deliver phone books that were declined would be fined by the State, just as violators of the "do-not-call" lists are fined.

This may require legislation, and the recycling requirement could be built into it, too. It's not a perfect solution, as I'm sure someone will come along a shoot about a million holes into this proposal, but it's a start. And it's better than just complaining about how much you hate phone books.

I use a phone book, and I don't mind it being delivered.

I also have a small business, which I advertise in the phonebook. So far, no problem.

Except now, there's three or more phone books being put out each year, and they all want me to advertise in them. I advertise in one phone book. If I advertised in three or four at the same rates for each, it might not be worthwhile to stay in business. I may demand a discount next time around on the grounds that each individual book is losing market share.

Oh, and whichever book I advertise in, it will NEVER be the "Yellow Book". That's because they send me these oh-so-clever things that look like a bill unless you read it carefully enough to realise it's not from your yellow pages. Anyone does that, I assume they're crooks and know better than to touch them with a barge pole.

Well Kari, nobody will fault you for borrowing Kos' material now and then.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/10/9/133926/281

I agree that there should be an opt-out option...why waste the books on those who don't want them? I live in an apartment, I haven't had a land line in over a decade (even for internet--I go to cafes for that). Yet every year I get multiple phone books...this calendar year so far I've had 9 dropped on my doorstep. I toss them all in the recycling bin. At work, it's worse. Since they assume we must have MANY people working in our office, we get four copies of each book. We've received over 40 this year alone and all but one set go into the bin.

If I were a business, I would be up in arms over the multiple books...you can't afford to put your info in them all, yet you can be fairly certain that people have a better than even chance to not see your info because a) they toss the book your info is in or b) even though they keep all the books, they just grab the top one off the stack to look something up and thus miss your info. This system actually hurts small businesses.

I think the two best ideas are a) opt-out or b) only get a book from your local phone source. Period.

Get off your elitist soap-box. I, like many other people don't have internet at home. I also don't have a land line so I don't call 411 on my cell (as it is costly). I probably use the Yellow Pages a couple of times a month.

Kari, unless you plan to pay for internet service at my house and the many others who don't have (or can't afford the luxury of that or even a computer) - then please just leave your copy on my porch and I'll have a back-up in my car.

Mamabigdog, those resourceful suggestions you offered for constructive use of the unwanted phonebooks reminded me of my parents talking about their use of the monkeyward catalogue in the outhouse a long time ago. I don't know if it was because of the 30's depression, or later because of the war. Wonder if that ink is toxic.

Just think of the economy built up around production of all those unwanted phone books. All those people will have to get employment elsewhere when the message finally hits home that phone books are mostly done for.

kari - i am all about the opt-out plan. when you figure it our in OR, come fix it here in NoVa next.

On a related note: for those of you who don't have/want to use phonebooks but don't want to pay for info service from your cell, you can call 800-373-3411. You have to listen to a 5 second ad and then you can get your listing free of charge.

No, Kari, this doesn't appear to violate the law you include in your message. It's like junk mail.

I agree that there are far too many of these printed now -- I usually stack mine for several years until it's over 6 ft hight, then take them to the recycle place.

Perhaps people should have to request one.

By the way, Kari, I was hoping for another article on Bernie so that I can tell you that you spoke too soon when you said "Buls**t" to the claim he knew all about his boss.

Bob Tiernan

I'll add one more: 1-800-555-8355 (800-555-TELL). And TellMe is a free service that goes well beyond 411 (news, driving directions, etc.).

I got you all beat -- they always give me two of these damn excrescences. My house is on a corner with my driveway on one street and my front sidewalk on the other. Invariably, when these things are "delivered", I find one (in its plastic bag) on my sidewalk and another at the foot of the driveway.

I think the guys who deliver the books (usually driving 15-20 year old beaters) get paid for delivering x number of books, not by the hour or day. So, dropping two at one house helps them get their dump (excuse me, "deliveries") made quicker. I wonder how many of those books get "delivered" to dumpsters at the end of the day?

And, how is it that the salespeople are able to get merchants to advertise in so many "yellow" directories? There used to be just one for each city or metro area. Now, I've lost track of how many there are.

I say, let's have an opt-out with real teeth in it ($100.00 fine for book delivered to residence which has officially opted out). I occasionally find the Yellow Pages useful, but the one set I get with my Qwest account is all that I need (and it's the most complete, too).

Even for those of us who do use phone books, one is enough. Phone books from multiple companies are nothing more than garbage and a waste of resources. Check out this page from the Product Stewardship Institute</a about phone book legislation that has passed in other states. North Carolina, New Mexico and New York require the industry to offer an opt-out provision. I say we go for something like that in Oregon.