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Mar 20, 2007 8:44 am US/Mountain
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Can I Stop The Phone Books?
DENVER (CBS4) ―
"We've thrown out our phone books for the last five years," said Denver resident Peter Sidwell.
He thinks phone books are a dead business.
"They need to move on," he said.
Sidwell is like a lot of people these days when it comes to needing a phone number. He uses the Web.
Denver resident Knobby Brown has several phone books stored away in her basement. Her husband gives them to people who live out of the area. Brown still looks numbers up the old fashioned way sometimes.
"There's some we need," she said.
But she'd like to receive fewer phone books.
The phone book business is big. Yell, the Great Britain based publisher of the, "Yellow Book," reports that in 2005 revenues of all yellow pages and local search publishers were an estimated $15.3 billion and forecasted to continue to grow.
Qwest spun off its phone book publishing business, called Dex several years ago. Dex is now operated by North Carolina based R.H. Donnelley. They publish 600 directories in 28 states.
CBS4 asked if they believe the days of the phone books are through.
"Absolutely not," said R.H. Donnelley assistant vice president of marketing Kim Breshears.
CBS4 did call Dex at 1-800-422-1234. The person who answered took our reporter's home address and said he'd be put on the list for opting out from delivery. Same thing for the Verizon/GTE books that are distributed in the Denver area. CBS4 called 1-800-610-4992 and asked to opt out from delivery and they said the reporter would be put on the list.
CBS4 asked Breshears if after opting out from delivery that would be observed by the sub-contractors and groups that typically deliver the directory.
"It's tough to say," she said. "Our goal would be to meet the needs of all of our consumers."
Breshears did say that Donnelley is under agreement with Qwest to publish its directories.
"Dex is the official publisher for Qwest," she said. "Our agreement with Qwest requires that we deliver to every home in the Denver metro area."
Qwest didn't argue with that. Both companies pointed to a Colorado Public Utilities Commission requirement mandating the delivery of phone books to customers in the service area.
The PUC said local phone providers like Qwest are under regulations to distribute a phone book to its customers - but not to everyone in the service area. The PUC added that there is no regulation requiring companies to allow customers to opt out from delivery.
Breshears added about delivery, "At this point we cannot stop that. It is part of our agreement with Qwest. However it is the time to assess whether every home needs a printed directory and to perhaps look at alternatives where consumers may have the opportunity to opt out at a future date."
The companies that don't provide your local phone service and still send you books, are under no regulation in terms of requirements to distribute or to allow you to opt out. It's the equivalent of junk mail.
Yell sent an e-mail reply to our query about opting out.
"We have found that consumers accept delivery of the yellow book gladly because we publish books that provide them with useful buying information," wrote a company spokeswoman.
She wrote that Yell does respect people's requests not to get delivery. CBS4 had a hard time finding a phone number on their Web site to call to opt out.
Many tons of phone books end up at Denver's recycling center every year.
Not long ago it was, "Somewhere between 200 and 300 tons a month," said Waste Management plant operations manager Jose Herrera.
The books, some of them brand new, go in with the mixed paper for recycling and are currently shipped overseas to a company in China. Another company, US GreenFiber has a plant in Denver that buys huge bales of phone books cheap.
"We recycle them, we shred them up and we turn them into insulation," said plant manager Steve Badgley.
Times are good for the company. There are plenty of recycled phone books to go around.
More
You can opt out of Yellow Book USA phone book deliveries by calling their distribution customer service center at (888) 400-5914. Tell them to put you on the Do Not Deliver List.
From A Viewer
CBS4 viewer Steve Wichman writes "I encourage people to put a sign on their mailbox reminding the contracted delivery people that you have opted out of the phone book (i.e. "No Phone Book Delivery") and get your neighbors to do it too so it's a 'common theme' in your area."
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