Talk about wind me up
[rant warning]
So I got home past night to find the new phone books inside the gate, all 4.8kgs of them.
Nothing particularly unusual about that, except that I had already gone through all kinds of hoops to not get the phonebook delivered. Of course there is no way on their website to easily opt out of delivery, and seemingly no formal process offline either…the working assumption is that everyone wants the bloody things. I don’t, so I called the directory services folks months ago and eventually got through to the distribution team and got someone who noted down my address and promised I wouldn’t get them.
Lovely. Not a simple process, but atleast I could opt out and do my bit to reduce a massive waste of resources. Except it seems my request disappeared (into the too hard basket)…Actually, deep down I fully expected that would happen, but was hopeful they’d manage.
Seriously, the white and yellow page directories (the dead tree versions) must be one of the biggest institutionalized resource wasters ever…the internet was supposed to save us from this damn it:
- In the last census there were identified 1,277,325 households with telephones.
- The directory distribution targets 100% of those households, but let’s assume they only reach 70%, or 894,127 households.
- In Auckland the yellow and whitepages weigh a combined 4.8kg, so let’s say that nationally the average combined weight is 1/3 of that (given that Auckland is a way bigger metropolis): 1.6kg
- That means they are delivering 1430 metric tones of phonebooks to residential addresses alone. Based on what I’ve seen delivered to coporate offices I’ve worked in, my guess is that the actual total weight of phonebooks delivered to residential and business addresses would be atleast double that: 2860 Metric Tonnes. That’s a helluva lot of paper.
Granted, those are some very rough mathematics and I’d be happy to see some more science around that, but the point is wouldn’t it be cool if you could opt out of receiving the phone books, or better yet if you had to proactively opt in to receive them…that would be the ultimate way to ensure minimal waste.
In the same 2006 census results there are identified 843,738 households with internet access. A bunch of those must be dial up houseoholds, but based on these stats c.118,123 would have broadband access…and for those households I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t be able to routinely access the yellow or white pages online.
If just half of those households with broadband used the White and Yellowpages websites instead we could save about 94 Metric tonnes of paper annually. Apply the same guestimate on office use and that’s probably over 200 Metric tonnes of paper to be saved annually…1000 Metric tonnes in the next 5 years!
There’s definitely some rough and ready assumptions in there, but the point is I honestly can’t remember the last time I opened the actual yellow pages and when I look around see the behaviour of friends and colleagues I see a similar thing…in the office the phone book more ends up as a monitor stand!
Just seems to me that the whole process could be alot more efficient, but that the Yellow and Whitepages are actually incented to perpetuate the rediculous distribution model because that’s how they make money. Everyone knows it is all going online, but in the meantime we are cutting down a lot of trees.
Am I wrong about this? Should I do anything with the domain I registered, nophonebook.co.nz?
PS – That the Yellowpages is going to have it’s lunch eaten by Google Local or some other playa is the topic of a whole other post. Suffice to say Trade Me already has the parts in place to povide a much more compelling directory service (built on top of smaps I reckon cause maps are just a better way of searching out local businesses)
PPS – Picture found on Flickr and taken by funkeemunkeeland. This phonebook recycling bin was filed the day after the books were delivered.
Not to dispute what you say, as I completely agree, but surely recycling will offset your math above by a really good margin? Isn’t the paper just going round and round and round?
No doubt, but it has to be better not to print them in the first instance.
Oh, and thanks for your comment Dave…nice to know someone is out there.
I think you missed a few key points in your rant:
1) most Yellow Pages publishers already use recycled paper in their products, upwards of 60%
2) how do you think Google or the other search engines are going to “eat their lunch” without the Yellow Page publishers going to all the small/mid-sized businesses to gather and help “webisize” all their data that you so desperately want to search on? Some 40%+ of small businesses don’t even have a website yet.
3) not everyone has access to the web. I guess we should just establish a class based society and tell those not able to use the Net that they have go without??
The Yellow Pages is the original search engine, and the industry will be critical in helping the world migrate to the paperless world you so desire. Just give them a chance.
I do agree, but I think part of the problem is that the websites aren’t comprehensive enough.
I don’t use the yellowpages site much at all, but I do use whitepages quite frequently. I wouldn’t ever want to be without the books, though, because at least a quarter of the time I have to drag out the book anyway because not all of the businesses in the book seem to be on the website.
They’re supposed to be, obviously, but quite frequently when I search I don’t get the same results as I do by just opening the book – whether this is an issue to do with search parameters or just the fact that not all the businesses are on there, it’s something which has most likely put a lot of other people off, and which stops them from seeing the websites as a reliable first port of call. If it is to do with search parameters, then it seems like a pretty big issue since the point is to make it as easy as possible to encourage people to use it.
Either way, I do agree with you that there should be a simple way to opt out of receiving the phone books, registering any queries or comments etc. We have a semi-circular driveway (and hence 2 ‘entries’) and every single year we get two sets of phonebooks because the genius delivering them can’t see that it’s all one driveway that clearly only leads to one house.
Hi Ken,
Thanks for your comment…
1) Good point about the use of recycled paper, but still, wouldn’t it be be better not to print them to start with if they’re not getting used? Many people do need them (and that’s fine), but there are also lots of people who don’t need them (like me) and for that reason the current approach to distribution is inefficient. Why can’t I atleast opt out?
2) You’re quite right about most small businesses not being online. But that’s not the point…they don’t need to be online themselves to get listed in the YP online or any other business directory…they just need to have access to the internet (either at work, at home or through a friend, or whatever) and they can provide their business details to any online directory player…which is what I believe will happen, when Google Local, or someone else, provides a better, more compelling alternative to YP online. Or YP could get their act together and do it first.
3) I think you got a bit carried away with your last point…I never said that they shouldn’t produce the YP directory. Infact I purposefully did those numbers around the fact that only a small proportion of people have decent internet access. Of course as it stands today many people don’t have easy (or any) access to the internet and those people need the directory. Of course the number of people in that camp will drop quite quickly in the next 10 years, but I am not advocating any kind of ‘class based society’. That’s just silly.
Keep in mind also that I’m talking about the Yellowpages in New Zealand here…it could well be that other YP operators are much savvier and will deliver those improved online services themselves. Indeed with the recent sale of the local YP business it could be that they get their act together here too…and I would be very happy with that, but I still think a good place to start would be to put in place a way for people to opt out of receiving 4.8kg of phone book that they don’t want.
Hey Julia,
That’s weird isn’t it. Why would the online version of the YP be limited like that? It should be more robust and up to date…unless of course the YP directory charges more to be included in the online version!? Surely not.