Phone Books are a total waste of paper…

Earlier today, I went on a field trip with my daughter’s preschool class to the post office.  It was a really neat little trip, and we learned a lot of cool things about the mail and how everything works.  But, I was blown away at the pallettes of phone books!  The lady giving the tour mentioned phone books four of five different times.  She talked about how it was their job to make sure they got out to everyone, how they sorted them all… and how they stored them in the mail room.

Now, I don’t know about you, but the last time I personally used a phone book was sometime in the late nineties.  I was still living at my parent’s house, and I am fairly sure my hair was in a scrunchie…I can’t be the only person who doesn’t EVER use a phone book, so let’s just take a look at all the resources these things are taking up, shall we?

• The paper it takes to make them
• The money it costs to print them
• The space they take up in the middle of the post office
• The different pallettes and machines it takes to move them around
• The postman’s time and effort it takes to deliver them
• The ink it takes to print those fancy covers
• The money from businesses who still feel the need to advertise in them
• The plastic they are wrapped in
• The manpower required to carry them up to my door, because the postman isn’t going to leave this at the community mailboxes in the middle of the street
• The money it costs to recycle my phone book, that I have never opened
• Or, worse, the space my unopened phone book will take up in a landfill if I don’t recycle it!

Yeah, and this list is just the one off the top of my head!  I am SURE that there are other things I am not even thinking about!

So, I am saying, let’s get rid of these darn things, and save some TREES!