Hey, you remember back in September, how we all filled out that form to tell the phone book companies to stop dumping phone books at our doorstep, because, you know, we’ve heard of Google?
It worked! According to the Seattle Public Utilities department, 75,000 residents and businesses have opted out (more than one-fifth of all Seattle households and businesses), which in turn has stopped 420,000 unwanted deliveries of phone books, or roughly 375 tons of paper. If you figure 12 trees make about a ton of the type of paper used in phone books, that’s 4,500 trees saved.
And, of course, because opt-outs are permanent (unless you opt back in), those savings are repeated every year. Thanks, Seattle.
Missed it last time? Well, get on the stick, yo, because May 22nd is the deadline to opt-out in time for the June delivery cycle. Under the regulations established by the city, residents and businesses must opt out at least 30 days before deliveries start, giving phone book publishers time to remove opt-outs from their lists of delivery addresses.
Visit the Catalog Choice web site to opt out of phone books and junk mail (or call (206) 504-3066). You’ll have to create an account, but once you’ve done it, you can sit back and picture all those trees you saved.