No, of course not. I haven’t used one in years.Why would I? I have DSL service in my home - and the phone company should KNOW that, right?
And there are other services, such as 800-GOOG-411 which is free and instantaneous on any phone.
And even if you do use the phone book, it's cross-referenced a billion times - and it is referenced to ancient turn of the last century English, i.e. "Clothing: see Apparel." Who the hell says 'apparel' when talking about retail clothing? Not even my grandmother.
If they're just making them for toddlers to be lifted up five inches at the dinner table - well, I'm pretty sure we can come up with something else, thank you.
Yet the phone companies — more than one of them, up to five — drop off pairs of white and yellow pages the size of ice blocks on every single front porch in every single city in every state in America.
How many acres of trees gave their lives for these tomes that will never even be cracked open? I'd venture that more that 3/4th of those retrieved off of porches and driveways will be placed into a cupboard or closet where they will sit until they’re thrown out (maybe recycled?) a year from now, when the NEW ignored phone books arrive. Think of the sheer waste. Between the trees, the ink, all the carbon expelled to cut, transport, pulp, transport, print, transport, then distribute, plus wrapping them in thick plastic bags - Hey granola ClimateFaith people: please take THIS issue on! I'll gladly support you!
Seeing the cost, why not make the phone books an option - one that costs a dollar or two? Okay it's the phone company - $19.95 plus tax. Fine, then incentivize the book to be wanted by placing valuable coupons in there or something. Like those Entertainment books?
But then I looked it up - in some states there's archaic laws on the books that require the company to publish and deliver a residential directory to every one of its customers. Everyone has to have a record of everyone's phone number. Okay, might it be time to revise that one? And if there's a law for the land line phone number - it obviously doesn't apply to cell phones, does it? And NO I do NOT want one for everyone's cell phone either.
You would think with all the lobbying power that the phone company yields, they'd try to tackle this one? I for one no longer wish to have my 24 phone books delivered at my house and yes, I DO recycle them.
1 comment:
Somebody, somewhere
Must be making money on this.
Otherwise, they would have gone away.
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