How Do You Recycle Phonebooks

Many recyclers will not accept telephone books because the fibers used to make the books’ lightweight pages are too short to be reformulated into new paper, reducing their value. In fact, mixing old phonebooks in with other waste paper can even contaminate the batch, hindering the recyclability of the other paper fibers. Nonetheless, phonebook papers are 100 percent recyclable and are used primarily to—you guessed it—make new phonebooks! In fact, most phonebooks distributed today are made from re-fabricated old phonebook pages mixed with some scrap wood to strengthen the fibers for re-use. Old phonebooks are also sometimes recycled into insulation materials, ceiling tiles and roofing surfaces, as well as paper towels, grocery bags, cereal boxes and office papers. In fact, in a gesture both symbolic and practical, Pacific Bell/SBC now includes payment envelopes in its bills created from old Smart Yellow Pages phonebooks. The Benefits of Recycling Phonebooks According to Los Gatos, California’s Green Valley Recycling, if all Americans recycled their phonebooks for a year, we would save 650,000 tons of paper and free up two million cubic yards of landfill space. Modesto, California’s Parks, Recreation Neighborhoods Department, which lets city residents include phonebooks with their regular curbside pickup, says that for each 500 books recycled, we save: 7,000 gallons of water3.3 cubic yards of landfill space17 to 31 trees4,100 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power an average home for six months Consumers trying to do the right thing should find out when and how their town or phone company will accept phonebooks for recycling. Some will only take phonebooks back at certain times of year, often when new books are being distributed. Some schools, echoing the â€Å"newspaper drives† of bygone days, run contests in which students bring old phonebooks to school where they are then collected and sent off to recyclers. To find who will take phonebooks in your area, you can type your zip code and the word phonebook in the recycling solution search tool on Earth911s website.   If You Cant Recycle, Reuse Even if your town  will not accept phonebooks at all, and you can’t find anywhere else to drop them, there are other options. First, you can ask your phone company not to send you one. There are plenty of online tools which allow you to find residential and business phone numbers, Old phonebooks have many practical uses. Their pages make excellent fire starters in a wood-burning fireplace or outdoor fire pit. Balled up or shredded phonebook pages also make nice packaging filler in place of problematic polystyrene â€Å"peanuts.† Phonebook pages can also be shredded and used as mulch to keep weeds down in your garden. The paper is biodegradable and will eventually return back to the soil. There are also a number of telephone book collectors; some who make money selling their stock to those with a historical interest or who are researching family genealogies. Lifelong collector Gwillim Law sells old phonebooks from all 50 U.S. states as well as from most Canadian and Australian provinces. Edited by Frederic Beaudry