The call comes from recycle-more.co.uk, the campaign website of compliance scheme Valpak, which has teamed up with online search engine 192.com to persuade householders to sign up to a “I don't use phonebooks any more” scheme.
” This campaign looks at recycling and the cause of the problem – the automatic production and delivery of a book that most householders no longer need. “
– Samantha Blades, Valpak
However, speaking to letsrecycle.com yesterday, phonebook manufacturer BT said that there was still “high” demand for paper-based directories and that not all people had access to online services.
According to the Valpak and 192.com campaign, which Valpak is promoting through its environmental website recycle-more.co.uk, 75 million phonebooks are delivered to residential addresses a year “whether houses want them or not”.
“Out of date”
Keith Marsden, managing director of 192.com, said: “Phonebooks are out of date by the time they go to print. Compare an online directory that's updated daily with a phone books that's already months out of date by the time it's delivered and I know which one I'd; choose.”
He added: “When you consider that Thomson and Yell are composed almost entirely of advertising and that even the BT Phonebook is headed down this route, why are phonebooks not treated the same as junk mail and telemarketing? We're calling for an opt-in system to force people to make a choice that will benefit both individuals and the community as a whole.”
Samantha Blades, at Valpak's recycle-more.co.uk website, claimed that the millions of unwanted phonebooks disposed of each year should be recycled, but many people either didn't get round to it, know how to do it or couldn't because of a lack of facilities.
She said: “This campaign looks at recycling and the cause of the problem – the automatic production and delivery of a book that most householders no longer need anyway.”
Yell
However, responding to the Valpak and 192.com campaign, a spokesman for BT suggested that old people might suffer if phonebooks became an opt-in only service.
The BT spokesman said: “A lot of older people can't get online and are dependent on the phonebook. It's still an integral part of people's homes.”
The BT spokesman was joined by a Yellow Pages spokesman from Yell, who would not comment specifically on the 192.com campaign.
However, he said: “The directory is a very robust product which continues to have substantial usage of over 1 billion uses a year. The vast majority of advertisers say the adverts provide good value for money so it is good for both consumers and advertisers. Ongoing research also shows that there's no real demand amongst householders to stop receiving their annual directory and its down to householders and businesses to decide for themselves.”
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The company said that it was “an environmentally and ethically sound” business, with a comprehensive recycling programme.
Last month, Yell met with UK-based paper mill Aylesford Newsprint to encourage them to recycle old yellow pages which were considered hard to recycle due to their ink (see letsrecycle.com story).
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