During the same period, various US states are deliberating laws that will impose the duty of collecting old directors to the companies that published them. The moves however did not achieve widespread success as only one US state passed such law. The reason being that many lawmakers see the act as whimsical and discriminatory given the fact that old telephone directories are only small portion of the waste that go into landfill.
Efforts to Stop phone books were also exerted by major publishers of telephone directories in the US through their joining in various recycling programs. For example, more than a hundred tons of old telephone directories are collected in Florida for the whole year. A number of private associations also started and developed their own environmental action plan to deal with this specific concern. What these plans have are guiding standards for environmentally responsible directories and procedures to follow so that source reduction is achieved. Added to these are calls for more joint effort with publishers and the government, local communities, schools, and businesses among others.
People and communities can be effectively encourage to recycle if they are well informed of the actual effects of their practices. For instance, a ton of recycled paper will save 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space, 24000 gallons of water, 17 trees and 3 barrels of oil among others. Imagine if more tons are saved and the impact will be significantly greater.
It is crucial to relate the large statistics shown to the public in practical and actual situations that they can picture out and relate to. The illustration should go like enough lumbers are save to construct hundreds of new homes rather than just reading the figure that thousands tons of lumber are saved. This is a far more effective message that people can understand and keep in their minds longer.
With private and public sector joining forces, the programs to Recycle phone books will have better results and impact. For the public sector, the capability to collect recycled items and to educate the people about this endeavor is already available. On the part of the private entities, companies like waste haulers can be encourage to join and promote the program since this has a direct impact on their business.
