Stop Yellow Waste

<img src="http://www.holstee.com/images/stories/YELLOW-TWITTER-ICON.jpg">The past couple of weeks brought the annual nationwide delivery of phonebooks.  In NYC, we had a week where it was virtually impossible to walk a block with out passing a freshly discarded phonebook waiting to be hauled off to the landfill. Infact, Tree Hugger recently had a great post discussing the impact of phonebook distribution in the US.

All of the contents of the phonebooks are readily available on the web. But what about the folks with out internet access? Well, 74.1% of US homes have internet access + the number without access is shrinking everyday. Considering these stats, telecom companies should allow people to opt in, rather than having to proactively opt out. That doesn't seem to be happening soon.

<img src="http://www.holstee.com/images/stories/yellow_waste_post.jpg"> My brother, Dave, and I created www.stopyellowwaste.com in response to this sad fact. Our hope is to expose what really happens once phonebooks are delivered to homes across the US. Next time you come across a yellow pages tossed to the curb or a stack of unopened verizon phonebooks snap a photo and email it to pics@stopyellowwaste.com and we'll post it for the world to see asap.  If you're using a mobile phone, the location of the photo will automatically be geo-tagged (thanks posterous).You can also follow the campaign via twitter @yellowwaste or show support via Facebook.

I'd love to hear what you think- please share thoughts or suggestions in the comments below.

ps- Approximately 540m phonebooks are printed annually in North America... thats more books than people in the continent.