Years ago, the Yellow Pages industry began to voluntarily specify papers containing a minimum of 40% recycled content, replace oil-based inks with soy products, move away from animal-based adhesives to water-soluble glues, and eliminate plasticized cover coatings – all in recognition of the need to make directory products fully recyclable. In addition, most directory publishers have instituted aggressive collection and recycling programs as part of their responsibility efforts.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Municipal Solid Waste in the United States: 2005 Facts and Figures”, page 37, telephone books represent 0.3% of the total municipal waste stream, no where near the 10% figure quoted in the Chevrolet insert.

Lastly, while the journalists at Wired magazine may well prefer online directories, there are still hundreds of thousands of advertisers who collectively spent some $13-14 billion on print Yellow Pages advertising last year in the U.S. alone and millions of U.S. consumers who collectively referenced those print directories 13-14 billion times during the same period.