Ideal Bite

In my rural era, phonebooks are still a must. Dont have texting available and online phone lookups that used to be free are now all pay sites. So yeah, I still need the phone book. My employer is great about collecting old phone books and recycling them, so I add my home ones to that endeavor and dont feel so bad.

Does anyone know how to get removed from the 'mailing list' in Canada?

Which is worse: having a phone book? having a home computer? Because you can only use online directories if you have a computer, and they are really bad for the environment.

Do I need to do this for everyone in my household, or just one person? THANK YOU for this tip, I (and everyone I know) is SO annoyed by all the phonebooks we never use!

I have been WAITING for this one. Thank you! There is also 1800free411... you don't need a computer for that one.

Thank you so much for this tip! My phone book goes directly from my front porch to the recycling container. It is such a pain in the butt! I use my computer or cell phone to look up all the numbers I need.

I work for a phonebook company and I hope I can enlighten just a bit on this issue. There are many, many, points to this article that I do not have the time to discuss but would like to touch on a few: The phone company is required to print and publish phone books for the areas they serve (ITS A LAW). So therefore, the many, many phone books people recieve are the issue, not the one you recieve from the phone company. Not only that but I also speak with hundreds of business' that drive the local economy feeling like they have to advertise in all the books. Take that money they are paying to all the independant phone book company and put it back into the local economy and you have alot less stress to the local business owner. There should only be one book per area but then you have a monopoly. Though it is true more and more people are using online to look for a business you CANNOT expect for every mom and pop, rural business to have an online presence, or have the money to dedicate to one. It is very easy for the city folk to say you should have a website, and blogs, and all these high tech forms of marketing but for the AVERAGE business this is UNREALISTIC. The internet is not the end all be all, perhaps it will take a collapse of the economy to get people to start thinking locally again. So whats the easiest way to get the number of the pharmacy just down the street? Or how about the local air conditioning contracter that does emergency work 24 hours a day? You look online for that information and you are very likely to find a large franchise with a web presence as opposed to Joe HVAC struggling to feed his family. The green movement goes hand in hand with the LOCAL movement.

PS Of course the majority of the people on this commenting will say they rarely use the book, they are already online and most likely since they are subscribed to a mailing list are a little savvy online, MUCH more savvy then the AVERAGE AMERICAN.

Well, yes and no. FYI, phone books aren't made from trees they're made from recycled pulp and lumber residuals. And the sites mentinoned for opt-out can't help because the publishers won't accept third party lists for privacy reasons. Best tip - go directly to the publisher and tell them you don't want the book. Directory publishers don't want to deliver to people who don't use them. And to help size directory usage,last year US consumers referenced the print YP over 13.4 billion times. So Internet or print directory, it's a personal choice. FYI, I work for the Yellow Pages Association.

What about in Canada? Anyone know of a similar way to get off the delivery list?