Landfills | YPGG - Why Green?

NEW YORK - Monday, April 22 was Earth Day, a holiday that was created 49 years ago in order to remind the world how their actions affect the environment, and how we all should be collectively taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint upon the planet in order to ensure the health and well-being of future generations.

In this day and age of differing political and social opinions on just about everything, helping to save our environment is certainly a cause everyone can get behind, and to make that easier for the average man, woman, and child to do, we’ve compiled a list of the top things your can do to help protect our planet.

Recycle…and not just the easy stuff. “Micro-trash” needs attention as well

Sure, some household items are easy to recycle, including large plastic, aluminum, cardboard, and glass, and it helps that many local municipalities offer weekly recycling pickups. However, a lot of people tend to overlook smaller items such as plastic straws, paper wrapping, and plastic grocery store bags. Most people tend to throw this “micro-trash” out, and as a result they end up clogging landfills across the country. Your average person typically isn't going to make the extra effort to try to separate these things from their regular trash, so a healthy alternative would be using metal or biodegradable straws and reusable grocery store bags instead of their single-use equivalents. The switch may be easier than you think.

Using reusable utensils

Another item that people tend to overlook, and something commonly found in office and workplace kitchens, are plastic utensils and paper or styrofoam plates. These can also be considered “micro-trash,” as they are typically small items that people don't think to recycle; as a result, they also tend to end up in landfills. While it may take a tiny bit of extra work, bringing reusable utensils and plates to your workplace is an excellent way to help reduce your personal carbon footprint. If you want to go even further, you could actually use utensils made from eco-friendly materials such as bamboo or recycled aluminum.

Commuting to work at new and different ways

If your ask your average worker what the dreariest part of their day usually is, most will probably tell you that it’s the commute to and from work. But there are ways to change things up that are not only more fun and interesting, but could actually help the environment as well! For example, if you live local to your work place, you could always ride your bike; this will not only save you money on gas and help the environment, but also you'll be getting some much-needed exercise in as well. In addition, hybrid and electric cars are more affordable now, so utilizing one instead of an old fashioned gas-guzzler is another viable option. And lastly, the old standby...carpooling! If you have several co-workers who are all looking for some variety in their commute, get together with them and make a point of traveling to work together, with a different co-worker driving each day.

See some trash? Pick it up!

While in a perfect world everyone would clean up after themselves when they're out enjoying nature, unfortunately some people can't be bothered doing so. That said, if you're out and about and you notice some inconsiderate person has left their garbage in a park or wooded area, give some serious thought to maybe picking it up yourself. Carrying a bag with you for such purposes is a good idea, and if you really want to go crazy, you could even consider separating any recyclables you may find as well.

Invest in solar energy

Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind are the wave of the future, so why not get in on the ground floor and help save the environment sooner rather than later? If you've ever wondered if the price of installing solar panels on your home would be worth it, you only have to look as far as the EPA's greenhouse gas equivalency tool, currently available on their website. According to their calculations, the energy output of even one solar panel per year equals the equivalent of hundreds of pounds of coal. In addition, solar power also helps to save the substances that are typically used up in the creation of other forms of non-sustainable energy, including water and air.

Earth Day may have come and gone, but there's no reason why you can’t adopt the spirit of this important holiday each and every day of your life. Going Green shouldn’t be an annual occurrence...if everyone pitched in each and every day, even in small and insignificant ways, it would all add up to a bright and sustainable future.

WANTAGH, N.Y. - YellowPagesGoesGreen.org ("YPGG"), a telephone directory at the forefront of the environmentally-conscious "Green" movement, has made a bold proclamation- that 2018 will be the year that digital and web-based business and residential directory distribution will take the very concept of the print-based phone book – already rendered out-of-date and obsolete by the ever-steady progress of technology – and confine it to the scrap pile of history once and for all. Thus, the very goal of YPGG – providing users the cutting edge in online directory options while protecting the Earth's environment at the same time – will have been achieved, to the betterment of mankind the world over.

An innovator in digital business and telephone directory listings and an advocate for staunch environmentalism, YellowPagesGoesGreen.org is a cutting-edge website that delivers over 28.5 million up-to-the-minute Yellow Page listings and over 200 million White page listings throughout the United States. In addition, YPGG is a pioneer in the national phone book "opt-out" movement that seeks to abolish obsolete print telephone directories that are not only out-of-date by the time they land on doorsteps, but find themselves clogging landfills by the millions shortly thereafter.

"Mark my words…digital directories have already overtaken print by a unfathomable margin, but 2018 will be the year where print will be vanquished once and for all. It's no longer a question of if print will die…it's now a question of when," said YPGG CEO and President, Michael Keegan. "The environment has sustained countless years of abuse by the creation of millions of physical phone books that are outdated the second they hit the stoops of residents who immediately throw them in the trash. After all, why would anyone want a clunky old phone book when they can just use a smartphone and have the same information faster, better, and cleaner? Believe me when I say that print is done for in 2018."

According to news website Vox, phonebooks were once actually quite useful; before the internet was created, they were the only way the average person had to look up phone numbers and addresses of friends, family, and businesses in their area. But nowadays they have become useless in every sense of the word, and a burden upon society- simply recycling or throwing away the 650,000 tons of phonebooks distributed nationally each year costs municipalities somewhere between $45 and $62 million.

But that burden of creating these useless phonebooks also extends to energy resources and the environment of the Earth itself. Scientific American notes that 19 million trees and 7.2 million barrels of oil are used annually to produce 1.6 billion pounds of paper, in addition to 3.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity; this process typically creates over 268,000 cubic yards of solid waste that ends up in landfills, and that number excludes the countless discarded phonebooks that eventually find their way there was well, especially in regions where recycling is not available or convenient. And according to statistics, only a mere fraction of Americans are currently bothering to recycle their phonebooks; typically that number hovers under 20 percent annually, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Social Media Today have also recently written on the lopsided amount of advantages of online directory listings that have caused people to abandon print options in droves, noting that – due to skyrocketing mobile device usage – 70 percent of Americans don't even open their phone books, and only 11% use the white pages. In direct contrast, 97 percent of consumers have used the Internet to find local businesses in the last year.

Clearly, print phonebooks – already limping along for the last decade – are close to the end of line, with digital directories the new standard-bearer for 2018 and the future. YellowPagesGoesGreen.org is leading the charge with the most up-to-date listings available anywhere, in addition to resources for consumers to "opt-out" of print phone directory delivery, enabling them to finally "go green" and embrace both technology and the environment at the same time. It is the steadfast hope of YPGG that 2018 will be the last year anyone ever sees a print phone book ever again.

Yellow Pages Directory Inc., owner of both YellowPagesGoesGreen.org and PaperlessPetition.org, offers an environmentally-friendly Web-based alternative to paper telephone directories while providing a simple and convenient mechanism for customers to opt out from the receipt of printed yellow books. Both web sites have been instrumental in promoting opt-out awareness across the United States over the past several years, and allowing users to reduce their own environmental footprints in the process. Yellow Pages Directory Inc. has also taken steps to reduce its own impact on the environment through the use of the most up-to-date and energy-efficient web-hosting services available.

For more information please visit http://www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org.

Tag: Landfills

Earth Day 2019 Has Come and Gone, but Here’s some Green Living Tips to Help Celebrate Year-Round

Yellow Pages Goes Green: 2018 Will Herald End of Print Phone Directories in Favor of Digital Options

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