This petition is now closed, as its deadline has passed.
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to establish a centralised opt-in system for receiving phonebooks. More details
Submitted by Mr Neil Watts of 192.com – Deadline to sign up by: 29 March 2010 – Signatures: 12,129
More details from petition creator
75 million phonebooks are produced and delivered each year, amounting to an estimated 75,000 tonnes of annual waste, enough to cover Hyde Park twice! Add in the cost of manufacturing, delivering and recycling phone books, this equals a totally unnecessary and avoidable environmental burden. The estimated amount of resources wasted include:
• 680,000 barrels of oil (not including petrol wasted during delivery) • 2 billion litres of water (not including water wasted in the recycling process) • 437 million kilowatts of energy (not including the recycling process) equates to enough energy to power 112,000 three bedroom houses for a year
From production to recycling, 75,000 tonnes of phonebooks equates to 96,000 metric tonnes of wasted carbon emissions!
We're asking for a centralised opt-in system for phonebooks, giving the UK population the choice to reduce the cost of producing unwanted and un-needed phonebooks.
UK phonebook suppliers have all moved to reduce the environmental impact of their products for example, by reducing the weight of the paper used and recycling the water used in production. Efforts have also been made to inform customers of the importance of recycling directories once they have been used.
Total UK paper consumption is about 13 million tonnes, of which 2.3 million tonnes is newspapers, 1 million tonnes magazines and periodicals and 0.55 million tonnes is direct marketing. There is significantly less paper used in the production of phonebooks than in other paper-based industries and it must also be considered that a considerable proportion of the phonebooks produced and delivered are used by the public.
A centralised opt-in system for receiving phonebooks is an interesting idea and would help to reduce the burden on resources and the environmental impact. There is no direct government regulation that would currently relate to this proposal as telephone directory information obligations and regulations fall within the remit of Ofcom, the independent telecommunications regulator and competition authority for the communication industries.
