Printed phonebooks (!)
I received a printed phone catalog in the mail, and felt like I'd been thrown back some 10 years or so. Why, oh, why would anyone print hundreds of thousands of paper books, distribute them to people who will never open them, but load on their cars and hopefully bring to be recycle, and not to landfill.
The catalog weighed 1,684 kg. According to Conserveatree, which seems to be a reliable and much quoted source for these things, it takes 12 trees to make a ton of this quality paper. 12 divided by 1000, times 1,684 equals 0,020208. So, fifty of these books took down a tree. If 500,000 books were made, it equals ten thousand trees.
I will need to drive 21 km one way to reach the closes paper collection point. My Prius exhales 108 grams of CO2 per km, so 42 times 0,108 equals 4,536 kg of CO2. Four and a half kilos, people.
Helsinki region has some 1 million people, many of which are single households. They don't use printed phonebooks. They use their mobile. This doesn't make any sense. Since the company obviously knows everyones's phone numbers, why don't they send an SMS to everyone and ask to confirme with A or B if we want to receive the book or not.
What madness!
Source
The catalog weighed 1,684 kg. According to Conserveatree, which seems to be a reliable and much quoted source for these things, it takes 12 trees to make a ton of this quality paper. 12 divided by 1000, times 1,684 equals 0,020208. So, fifty of these books took down a tree. If 500,000 books were made, it equals ten thousand trees.
I will need to drive 21 km one way to reach the closes paper collection point. My Prius exhales 108 grams of CO2 per km, so 42 times 0,108 equals 4,536 kg of CO2. Four and a half kilos, people.
Helsinki region has some 1 million people, many of which are single households. They don't use printed phonebooks. They use their mobile. This doesn't make any sense. Since the company obviously knows everyones's phone numbers, why don't they send an SMS to everyone and ask to confirme with A or B if we want to receive the book or not.
What madness!
Source
In Sweden the distribution-company asks before printing and sending phonebooks to you ;-)
Reply to this
I agree, its shocking to think how many trees are wasted to make these obsolete phone directories. That said, being from the past I reach for the yellow pages before I go online...
Reply to this
I had no idea this was as destructive as this.
Reply to this
Wow, do they still deliver the phonebooks to home in Helsinki region?
(I remember something about getting a coupon at home, for fetching the phone book from a grocery store or something).
Some years ago in Finland one phone number catalog company giving out free access to online phonebook (white pages) got their service closed by court order, because of "unfair competition" (i.e. giving that public info for free to everyone, as their competitors were charging for exactly same service. Nowadays the company allows access for "registered users" -- as you can register with 0.25€ SMS.
http://www.digitoday.fi/page.php?page_id=66&news_id=200313229
These kinds of things certainly seem to slow down getting rid of paper phone books.
Not saying that the phone book is useless, but most people wouldn't want a new one _every year_. Ridiculous spending of resources.
Reply to this
Catch-up services were mostly Peer to Peer where users would download an application and data would be shared between the users rather than the service provider giving the now more commonly used steaming method.
Reply to this
it takes 12 trees to make a ton of this quality paper. 12 divided by 1000, times 1,684 equals 0,020208. So, fifty of these books took down a tree. If 500,000 books were made, it equals ten thousand trees.
Reply to this