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Aug 27, 2009 | 9
They can be used to press flowers—or as a booster seat, door stop or laptop desk. However, fewer and fewer phone books today are employed as originally intended—to look up telephone numbers. So why are they still regularly dropped at our doorsteps?
The main reason: the law. In most states, phone companies are still required to provide the directories to landline customers, even if the tomes might soon make their way to landfills. In fact, less than 16 percent of adults recycle their old or unwanted phone books, according to a survey conducted by WhitePages, a popular online phone directory. Now, the company is sponsoring a "Ban the Phone Book" initiative to encourage phone book "opt-in" delivery programs, reports Grist. A few of these plans, which require subscribers to actually request the books, have already sprung up in parts of Georgia, Ohio and Florida. (Many more areas offer the less efficient "opt-out" programs.)
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