WhitePagesGoesGreen.org: End of 2016 Marks End of Print Phone Book Era
NORTHPORT, NEW YORK - WhitePagesGoesGreen.org by Yellow Pages Directory Inc., a massive website at the forefront of the environmentally-conscious “Green“ movement, is preparing to enter 2017 by ramping up efforts to convince the American public of the ease and effectiveness of web-based directory solutions and the hazards posed to the environment by outdated print phone book publishers.
An innovator in digital business and telephone listings and an advocate for staunch environmentalism, WhitePagesGoesGreen.org is a cutting-edge website that delivers over 200 million up-to-the-minute listings of people throughout the United States. Whereas print directories are often out-of-date within months of their publication and use up valuable natural resources in both their creation and disposal, WhitePagesGoesGreen.org is a fast, convenient, and easy way to access the information you need.
WhitePagesGoesGreen.org's listings are updated constantly, always ensuring users with the most accurate information all times; meanwhile, print directory users have to wait 365 days before they get any form of an update dropped onto their doorstep, which in turn will be useless for yet another year, and so on. In addition, WhitePagesGoesGreen.org users not only have the ability to search listings, but to add and maintain their own as well.
An article published on the WhitePages.com Blog (now only archived) entitled "Five Reasons You Don't Need Phone Books" cites statistics such as the fact that 615 million volumes of phonebooks equates to 100 million tons; obviously, a fair percentage of that staggering sum will end up in landfills, as according to Earth911.com, only 37 percent of phone books were recycled in 2009. The White Pages Blog article also mentions the growing membership and effectiveness of online phone directories and the growing ease of opting out of receiving phone books to begin with as other convincing arguments for doing away with the archaic concept of print directories in favor of digital solutions.
But what is the actual impact of all those unwanted phone books? At around the time time, 2010 actually, Treehugger.com reported that, annually, an estimated 650,000 tons of phone books are distributed to America's 100+ million households. At an EPA estimated national recycling rate of 18%, only 117,000 tons of phone books are recycled each year, many of them on the day that they are received. Treehugger also says that, according to Product Stewardship Institute estimates, it costs between $50 and $75 per ton to recycle phone books and between $75 and $100 to dispose of them in a landfill; annually, we spend between $45 and $62 million to get rid of unwanted or old phone books, or $0.45-0.60 per household.
But the impact of phone books goes beyond mere financial concerns, and right into the very fragile fabric of the environment itself. Treehugger also reports that greenhouse gas emissions from producing the aforementioned 650,000 tons of paper produces 1,474,000 metric tons of CO2-equivalents; by comparison, the greenhouse gas emissions of the entire Walt Disney Corporation in 2006 were 1,649,717 tons of CO2-equivalents. The production of 650,000 tons of paper also requires the use of 44.2 billion liters of water, in addition the loss of forest, the eutrofication of rivers, and more.
An article published by Forbes by writer Tom Barlow entitled "Yellow Pages: No More Waste on the Stoop," touts the internet as the clear and present successor of print yellow pages; in comparison, he says, it renders phone books "as obsolete as a slide rule." Barlow goes on to discuss wastefulness of phone book delivery and the need for effective opt-out programs; he cites an new and effective program in Seattle, Washington as being responsible for the cancellation of close to a quarter of a million books since its inception.
The fact that more and more people using their phones and computers to look up business listings has the Yellow Book publishers sweating in more ways than one; decreased distribution is leading, quite obviously, to decreased ad revenue. Hubspot.com's (now archived) article entitled "Why Yellow Pages Ads Are A Waste of Money" states the truth rather emphatically: "Yellow Pages ads are no longer a working marketing mechanism." The Hubspot article goes on state why phone book ad revenue is slipping, citing the fact that "phone directories epitomize an era that is fading away, while our research and shopping habits are shifting online." Baatsebaat.com states that advertisers are "now changing into a quicker, friendlier and simpler approach to finding local business owners- the web" and that "estimated telephone book usage would possibly decrease to close absolutely nothing by the year 2012 for individuals under 50."
Reprints from environmental or news and media agencies is encouraged.
