I enjoy reading about great ideas from other cities or countries for a more sustainable lifestyle—ideas that would work well in New York City, too. For instance, Seattle just passed the nation's first phone book opt-out law. What does this mean? Individuals will not automatically get phone books—they can decide to opt-out of having them delivered. The massive phone book delivered to homes each year is quickly becoming obsolete. Most personal or business contacts have cell phones and email addresses, which are not found in the phone book. Most businesses are listed online, where you can get more information that you would in the phone book anyway. Seattle's new law is the first step in alleviating the tremendous amount of paper and energy used to provide yearly phone books, and the amount of waste as tons of phone books become obsolete each year.
Read more about this at Earth 911.
Artwork of shredded phonebooks courtesy of John Michael Morehead
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