Is the Yellow Pages More Harmful Than Helpful?

[jwxie]

What more can I say about this picture?

Man, I suppose YP makes a lot money with those numbers in the book.

Anyway. I find YP useful when I need that to explain the friction and Newton's second law.

... LOL

 

[lisab]

It was bad enough when there was just one yellow pages publisher, we have several here! It seems every couple months another one appears on my doorstep. Sigh.

 

[Evo]

When your electricity is out, if your internet is out, if your computer is dead, if you are one of the many millions that don't have internet. You need a phone book.

How much wood is burned in fireplaces for fun each year? If you don't want to use it for phone numbers, it can be used as toilet paper.

 

[jwxie]

Evo. Good point. But, is there a reason why we HAVE to receive it? The distribution is the same as distributing a flyer, of course.

I just received one last week. I threw it into the recycling trash.
Actually, the interesting point is not always about trees. Which one causes more carbon wastes? Printing, or Internet?

 

[Evo]

Evo. Good point. But, is there a reason why we HAVE to receive it? The distribution is the same as distributing a flyer, of course.

I just received one last week. I threw it into the recycling trash.
Actually, the interesting point is not always about trees. Which one causes more carbon wastes? Printing, or Internet?

Good question, a one time printing or all of the hardware, software, the networks, the electricity, the manpower, etc... all involved in the internet, hard to say. Behind what you see on the internet is probably a ton of printed paper to boot.

Personally, I'd like to see the phone books printed and delivered by request only.

 

[nismaratwork]

Frankly, yellow pages and the like tend to be produced from commercially farmed poppler, and don't really have an effect on old growth or other valuable trees. The issue would be their processing into paper, distribution (fuel, water, waste, and fuel to transport), and the plastic used to wrap the pallets. At this point, if you have a phone you can call information, and most places where individual internet is not a thing have internet at libraries and cafes. I don't see power outages as being sufficient justification for these little books.

Remember, this is all about ad revenue, so it's not as though most of these are being sent to rural Indonesia, rather they're just plastered everywhere. I think Evo has it right, but that would destroy the profit motive to make them I'd guess.

 

[Proton Soup]

they're farmed from organic renewable resources, and can even be recycled. i like them.

i can also find stuff faster, and not every business (including some especially useful ones) are on the internet.

 

[nismaratwork]

they're farmed from organic renewable resources, and can even be recycled. i like them.

i can also find stuff faster, and not every business (including some especially useful ones) are on the internet.

Yeah, but you can't recycle the water used in the process (forever at least), or the fuel for transport. You may have noticed, but those suckers are heavy! I don't think it's worth it, but to be fair it's not exactly Chernobyl.

 

[mugaliens]

If you don't want to use it for phone numbers, it can be used as toilet paper.

(chuckle) It's not a Sears and Roebuck, but I suppose that's more useful than using it as landfill.

 

[Andre]

Hmm Remembers me of an interesting observation. I was in Fort Worth Tx for a meeting in the mid 1990s sometimes, when it became apparent that I had to postpone my flight back to The Netherlands. So I had to phone the air line to arrange that and quickly since time was a bit critical for that. So after a lot of time consuming search work, I finally got a hold of the Yellow Pages. So I opened it at the beginning for the air lines, and found myself in the air conditioners section, -Ah close, 'air' already- so I turned the page, air conditioners, next page, air conditioners, okay several pages at a time then, air conditioners, It seemed to be somewhere halfway the book that finally the air lines popped up, many costly minutes later it seemed. Luckily I was still in time but it was close.

 

[Chi Meson]

Let's take things out of context and see what fun we can have.

How much wood is burned in fireplaces for fun each year? If you don't want to use it for phone numbers, it can be used as toilet paper.

OUCH!

 

[encorp]

Well it's the same with these as it is with unsolicited "junk" mail or flyers - I don't understand why most municipalities have yet to just ban flyers and make a program where phone books are by request only.