Comments

1
Who do we dump Bing and Google and Dex at for doing such a lousy job at local search?
2
Government of the hip young iphone users, by the hip young iphone users, for the hip young iphone users. Fuck off grandma, why aren't you and your landline, yellowpages, CRT television, Pontiac, brick'n'mortar world dead yet?
3
@Fnarf: would such a person though need a new phonebook every year? If they're fine with the lanline phone (which they likely still lease), a CRT television (with rabbit ears and a bad vertical hold circuit) and the Pontiac (with a carbeurator and points to gap) - then they are almost certainly comfortable dining at the same restaurant they have always dined at (at 4:30 pm).
4
Doesn't using anything but bicycle or foot transport to bring these dead trees to City Hall offset the Zero Waste goals of this fine city? Can't we just post photos of unused books on his blog?
5
@2 -- wouldn't the opt-in cover them?
6
I guarantee that something in excess of 25% of the population of the city will never hear about or understand "the opt-in". I'm sure the email address to send one's opt-in request will be buried on some ultra-easy-to-find city webpage, which means it's accessible to everyone, right?
7
Exactly, go to the Library and use the iPad there to view it.
8
Wouldn't it be more accurate to count new phone books that arrive at the recycling center? I'm no statistics expert, but I doubt there's a reliable method to extrapolate the total number of unwanted books from the number dropped off at city hall.
9
aw, snap. Qwest dropped off about 50 of those books at my apartment building last week and I had them come & take them back. They were pretty easy to deal with. I asked them to save the trip next year. We'll see how it goes. I asked Verizon in the past and they pretty much ignored me. The other companies that drop off the books make it difficult to get in touch with a representative.

Though I've never executed the plan, I had thought of contacting the premier advertisers of those phone books--the ones that advertise on the front/back/full page, etc and advising them that the books never made it to the intended recipients, could be found in our recycle bin and may wish to ask for a refund from the 'yellow pages' company that sold them the ad.
10
#6:

With an Opt-In program, it would be the job of the phone book companies to inform you of your options. They have no problem getting 4 pounds of paper to every doorstep in the city - they can manage to distribute doorhangers or send postcards bulk mail. Comcast does it to people all over the city on a weekly basis. The phone book companies have every financial incentive to get people to opt-in. It's their job, not ours, to figure out their accurate distribution routes.
11
@6- That's still 75% that does understand; the majority rules. Go opt-in all the way!
12
@4, I'm not sure that's the point. At least not for me, anyway. I haven't had a land line for the better part of a decade, yet Dex keeps sending me phone books. In fact they just tossed one down my driveway yesterday. I kicked the shit out of it (made me feel good), and then put it in the trash rather than the recycle bin (hey, not my fault -- if Dex didn't want this stuff to go into the landfill, they wouldn't have sent me a book). Had I known there was going to be a "dump your trash on city hall day", I would've saved it for then.

Although I'm sure whatever gets dumped on city hall will ultimately get recycled, so I'm happier I trashed it instead.
13
@2. You got it exactly right. The old people need to give it up and let the fresh blood, new ideas and that crazy change thing happen before we are bankrupt, ecologically devastated and all working for some branch of the military.

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