Victory! San Francisco Ends Unlimited Phone Book Distribution

by Jess Leber · 2011-05-23 10:29:00 UTC
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Don't want the Yellow Pages dumped at your doorstep? Great news. If you live in San Francisco, starting May 2012, you won't get one.

Last week, in an overwhelming 9-1 vote, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors passed the nation's first-ever Yellow Pages opt-in ordinance, a program that could save San Franciscans $1 million taxpayer dollars every year and end millions of pounds of paper waste.

The phone directory industry, fearful of the groundbreaking precedent this ordinance sets, lobbied against it intensely. But 11,000 Change.org members, more than 1,000 of who are San Francisco residents, helped counter their efforts with a swell of grassroots support. This petition, backed by the legislation's sponsor Supervisor David Chiu, became part of the legislative record during the heated debate of the proposal. In addition, PhonebookFree SF, a grassroots group of citizens, presented it when they tried to return 1,500 unwanted phonebooks to AT&T's San Francisco headquarters in March (it turned out even AT&T didn't want the phonebooks, and neither did the local recycling facility).

This victory will bring San Francisco closer to meeting its goal of zero waste by 2020, and is an important benchmark for consumer choice in our digital age.

That doesn't mean the phone directory industry, which makes billions of dollars of advertising revenue printing books that often go unopened, will go quietly into the night. In Seattle, the industry sued the city for passing a less stringent mandatory "opt-out" measure. This lawsuit, however, has been unsuccessful so far. What's more, barely a week since the opt-out program took effect, more than 100,o00 people have already decided they can live with the heavy books. Even The New Yorker recently weighed in on what they have dubbed the city's "phonebook wars."

Already, in San Francisco, the industry has promised to sue. It already said it will appeal the Seattle court decision against them.

Unfortunately, momentum is probably not on their side. Oregon has at least considered similar legislation, and a group has already started a popular petition on Change.org to support the idea. Other cities or states could also follow suit.

If you live in Oregon, consider signing the petition to end unwanted phone book delivery. If you don't, and you'd like to see this happen in your town, start your own petition here.

Follow Change.org's Environment page on Facebook,  Twitter or RSS.

Photo courtesy of PhonebookFree SF

Jess Leber is a Change.org editor. She most recently covered climate and energy issues as a reporter in Washington, D.C

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