Cutting down on phone books, junk mail: Council reviews options

We’ve talked before about phone books and junk mail, and how to try to opt out of them. The city council’s Public Utilities and Neighborhood Committee (which had a special meeting on another topic here in West Seattle last week – here’s our report) is taking up the topic tomorrow, with several options before them. In case you want to let them know which sounds best to you, here’s the “draft memo” listing the options. They range all the way up to passing a new law that would allow some phone books to be delivered on an “opt-in” basis only. The preferred option, according to the memo, is to contract with a company called Catalog Choice that would provide an online “enhanced opt-out service” for both city and county residents via Web access; the memo says it would cost $30,000 to get that going next year. Tomorrow’s committee meeting is at 2 pm at City Hall downtown; here’s the full agenda.

14 Replies to "Cutting down on phone books, junk mail: Council reviews options"

  • New Guy June 21, 2010 (2:48 pm)

    Oh I’ll bite.

    This is one of those comment threads that will quickly devolve into people telling me that if I care so much, I need to show up at this and that committee meeting and bang my head against the wall of bureaucracy and Seattle Process. Ok. I accept that. But this is just too tempting.

    So…huh??? The city council has to spend $30K of public dollars to create an opt-out system for utilities who are collecting advertising dollars and forcing what are essentially ads masquerading as a service (a phone book) on me? Am I understanding this correctly?

    I prefer my method, which is to take the thing that got dumped on my doorstep downtown to the Qwest building and dump it back on their doorstep. Maybe if all of us did that, they’d have to spend their own money so that we could opt out? Or even better, set an opt-in policy?

  • anonyme June 21, 2010 (3:59 pm)

    NewGuy, I’m with you. It makes no sense for taxpayers to have to pay NOT to receive commercial advertising. How many tons of phone books do taxpayers already pay to recycle every year? So now the City wants us to pay to recycle and pay not to recycle, but not to have a choice which? Why is it we get screwed either way, and QWest is off the hook? QWest should be responsible for these costs, not us. It’s like one giant, yellow oil spill.

  • dsa June 21, 2010 (4:13 pm)

    NewGuy, you got it right. They also want to cut off junk snail mail. It should be up to the USPS to decide what gets delivered and what rate they need for it.

  • marty June 21, 2010 (4:15 pm)

    It’s no wonder that our city/county/state/federal governments are broke. What ever happened to common sense? Seems like they are always thinking of ways to spend money they don’t have.

  • Alki Resident June 21, 2010 (7:06 pm)

    My neighbor and I were able to catch the guy delivering these books to us last week before he left our yard.We had him take back the books.We get way too many each year,its out of hand.With internet service we no longer need books.My other nieghbor has at least seven sitting where they were left,hoping someday to make a large bonfire for them.What a waste Seattle get real.

  • J June 21, 2010 (7:25 pm)

    One figure that’s missing is how much the city would save (in disposal fees) if they contracted with Catalog Choice. I realize this would be an estimate, depending on how many people opt out. But it seems likely to me that it might be a net savings, even if they pay for CC to manage it.

    My preference would be an opt-in, but I do understand the disadvantages listed–at least at first, I foresee lots of legal challenges from the companies–and that might cost more than the Catalog Choice contract.

    FWIW, I started using Catalog Choice 1.5-2 years ago. I’ve seen a drastic reduction in unwanted catalogs, and I’ve found them very helpful in pressuring certain companies (who at first chose to ignore my requests) to comply. It used to be that to reduce other junk mail I had to register with DMA and some other organizations. But it looks like CC is consolidating all that, too! I like the idea of having all my opt-outs in one place.

  • Rod Nelson June 21, 2010 (8:07 pm)

    Much ado about nothing. Just recycle the stuff.

  • old timer June 21, 2010 (9:46 pm)

    Quest I can deal with.
    Qwest is my phone company and once a year
    they deliver me a new set of books, white & yellow.
    All my life it’s been that way starting with Bell.
    It’s Verizon and Banana Pages and who knows who else that
    drop multiple times a year books of varying sizes that go straight to the recycle bin.
    I called the Verizon number to ‘opt out’.
    Several months later, they called wanting to know why I wanted to opt out.
    They could not understand ” I do not want it”.
    Apparently no place on their computer screen to put such a remark.
    I’m still getting Verizon books.
    Hey!
    You advertisers – are you reading this?
    All your ad dollars in the recycle bin!

  • J June 21, 2010 (11:40 pm)

    I’d also add that they’re going to hear from the phone book companies, arguing that they already have “opt-out” systems in place, and that the city doesn’t need to get involved. As someone who has struggled to opt out, I’d disagree, vehemently.

  • austin June 22, 2010 (6:57 am)

    This is funny because I’ve been wanting some of the little magnets that come stuck on the cover of phone books for a couple of weeks now. They’re good for making stickers into fridge magnets.

  • Rick June 22, 2010 (7:25 am)

    @NewGuy Bingo!

  • Alki Bee June 22, 2010 (7:30 am)

    Somebody’s making money somewhere from these books. I’ve never opened one; they go straight into the recycling bin–but evidently advertisers see it as a worthwhile investment. So what’s the advantage, and to whom? Just curious…

  • Alkira June 22, 2010 (8:37 pm)

    I am so grateful to the folks working on this!

  • Ellie June 27, 2010 (11:28 pm)

    An Opt-In ordinance would end the annoyance of unwanted phone book delivery because phone book companies would not be allowed to leave phone books on your property without your permission. Ratepayers would be relieved of paying the cost of disposal and recycling of unwanted phone books, and hundreds of tons of waste would be diverted from landfill each year. The industry’s self-regulated voluntary opt-out programs have not worked – the cancellation process is time-consuming and burdensome, and even after opting-out, delivery often continues anyway. Opt-In is the common-sense zero waste solution to the wasteful and out-dated practice of saturation phone book delivery.

    And in response to the person who suggests this is “much ado about nothing”, this “nothing” happens to be the only life-sustaining peice of real estate available to our species, and recycling is the solution the phone book companies want you to buy. Obviously all the pollution, resource waste, etc. of having made the item in the first place is a problem, and then recycling the unwanted product is yet another round of resource use and pollution. Not making an unwanted product in the first place is the no-brainer solution.

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