01.Mar.2010 Councils wage war on pointless phonebooks

The Local Government Association (LGA) has called on householders across the country to wage a war on needless phone directories as they take note of the ‘Say No To Phonebooks’ campaign analysis that revealed it costs £7.5m a year for taxpayers to clear up the mess of phonebooks. You can read the full release here where the LGA explains that the ’£7.5m spent collecting and disposing of phone directories could pay for 491 teaching assistants or 259 social workers, or it could be spent filling in approximately 108,700 potholes’. Surely a much more worthwhile cause?

While this latest announcement has been picked up by the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, we think it’s worth us responding to Age Concern in the Daily Telegraph article. The ‘Say No To Phonebooks’ campaign is calling for a system where printed directories are be available only on request and not delivered automatically. This will balance the need for directory access for the elderly with environmental and government expenditure concerns.

Over the weekend, Junk Buster have reported thousands more people have contacted Yell, Thomson & BT to ask to be excluded from future phonebook deliveries. To take action today, sign up on JunkBuster’s site and sign our petition on the Downing St website. Time is running out to sign the Downing St petition so forward the link on to all your friends and colleagues to make your voice heard.