Yes, we’ve been a bit quiet of late but its all as we prepare for a massive 2009. More to come shortly, much more… But keep your comments and emails rolling in. It seems the support for this campaign just continues to grow.
Quiet yes, but not out, and this piece of news in The Guardian yesterday was too important not to share: “Paper price collapse blows hole in Britain’s recycling strategy“.
So the report goes, the price paid by the Far East for paper recycling has fallen so much that it may no longer be viable to ship this waste off for re-processing. The only other option? Incineration or landfill!
Well there’s 75 million tonnes of phonebooks we could stop producing right now to save such a cost to local councils but more importantly, the earth. If only households had a right to say no!
News from the US this week is that some hotel chains have already started saying goodbye to phone books.
Their position: Guests no longer let their fingers do the walking through the yellow pages, because they have the Internet at their fingertips. Hyatt Hotels are among those with phonebook free rooms.
This is welcome news and demonstrates that businesses as well as consumers want the option as to whether they receive a phonebook. Imagine if everyone of the 4.5M businesses in the UK refused to receive a phonebook? Then we would really start to make an impact.
What are the OLGA’s you say? The Online Green Awards of course! Designed to encourage environmentally friendly aspects of the Internet, the OLGA’s promote the importance of the online economy and empower consumers and websites to be more socially responsible.
We are very proud to be shortlisted for the ‘Say No to Phonebooks’ campaign at these prestigious awards, as we continue to promote online directories as a much greener alternative to old phonebooks. It’s a fantastic endorsement of our campaign. Fingers crossed we do well at the award ceremony tomorrow.
Feedback on the campaign so far has been that many people just aren’t using phonebooks anymore. We have, however, found some alternative uses for the unused phonebooks that just keep stacking up in our homes….
Did you know you can’t tear two intertwined phonebooks apart?
Don’t believe me? Check it out!
Or fancy yourself as a bit of a strongman?
Find out how you tear a phonebook in half!
If you’ve found a better use for phonebooks, let us know. It all goes to show they’re not used for directory enquiries anymore!
Phonebook furniture?
I was walking down my high street on the way to work this morning and it seems the Business Pages have come to our local area.
Before we started this campaign we did a quick straw poll of all the offices in our building asking whether they used phonebooks anymore. Only 3 out of our 8 corporate neighbours could even find phonebooks in their office. 2 out of the 3 that could find a secret stash of phonebooks, still had them in their original protective plastic and the other one had phonebooks dating back to 2005!
So no surprises then when, this morning, with a number of shop fronts doors still sporting their shiny new phonebooks one owner had sent theirs directly to the rubbish pile. No point taking it inside for that business! If that’s not a case for making phonebooks opt-out, I don’t know what is…
An unopened phonebook dropped straight on the rubbish pile!
Only a week into our campaign and already we’ve got the eco blogging community talking. We particularly enjoyed reading Michael Parsons post on http://www.smartplanet.com/news/household/10001221/death-to-the-phone-book.htm CNET’s Smartplanet.com Which reiterates our point that internet directories have far more to offer than paper directories.
It’s estimated that 60% of phonebooks end up in landfill every year. You can help reduce this waste by taking 30 seconds to sign our epetition. The more votes we have, the stronger our case to the government asking for a centralised opt-out system for phonebooks, just like the Mail Preference Service. It’s not rocket science, other industries have done it, we should be able to do it to!
Imagine, if we could halve the number of phonebooks delivered every year, what an impact that would have on our precious environment. Once you’ve signed the epetition, why not send it on to your friends as well?
Do you even take your phonebooks inside when they are delivered? Does it ever come out of its plastic. Help reduce the waste – support our campaign!
There’s no doubt that phonebooks are a huge environmental menace, but we need enough people in the UK to stand up against them to make things change. So we’re asking everyone we know to show their support for a centralised and highly publicised opt-out system for phonebooks. And what better way then inviting if all your friends on Facebook? If you do have a Facebook profile, join our group, invite your friends and Say No To Phonebooks:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=30441825856
When we asked the UK public, ‘How many people use printed phonebooks anymore?’, 4 out of 5 respondents said, ‘Not me’ and backed an opt-out system for phonebooks much like you can do with the mail preference service. Let’s face it, it’s a book filled with advertising, so you should have the right to choose whether you receive it or not.
More importantly, how many people still use printed phonebooks? Online directories, such as 192.com, offer UK wide coverage, have flexible search options, and offer additional valuable content such as interactive maps and local services.
The research also told us:
- The Internet is quicker for finding information (62 per cent)
- Phonebooks are too cumbersome (56 per cent)
- Phonebooks go out of date too quickly (39 per cent)
People were also frustrated at how difficult it is to recycle phonebooks: nearly half (49.2 per cent) of those questioned said there were no facilities for recycling phonebooks in their area. While 99% of Boroughs & Counties offer some sort of recycling facilities, it’s estimated that just over half of the books are actually recycled. Add this annual addition to landfill to the huge environmental cost of producing, distributing and recycling the books when over 60% of UK households have Internet access at home.
With 25 million households in the country receiving on average of 3 phonebooks a year, that amounts to 75,000 tonnes of waste – that’s enough to cover the whole of Hyde Park twice, every year!
So today we kick off the campaign to Say No To Phonebooks, asking for the establishment of a centralised and publicised system to allow UK households to opt-out of receiving the phonebook. It’s definitely long overdue.
Wait for it….coming very soon….the long anticipated launch of the Say No to Phonebooks campaign….
