Hold the phone books, lawmaker asks

Let your fingers do the walking? These days, it's more like let your arms do the carrying -- straight to the recycling bin. With the directory business booming, many North Carolinians are annoyed at phone books littering lawns and driveways.

A state lawmaker has the solution: a do-not-deliver registry, just like the one for junk mail. Sen. Janet Cowell, a Raleigh Democrat, has proposed a bill to require each directory provider to have a hot line for stopping delivery. She said it would reduce waste, save governments the cost of recycling and end the problem of phone books left rotting on the pavement. "I bet you 25 percent of my neighbors haven't picked theirs up," Cowell said.

Scott Mouw, the state recycling supervisor, said if phone books go in the trash, they take up landfill space. But they are hard to recycle because of their low-grade paper and heavy-duty glue.

"It would be a lot cheaper to reduce the number of phone books in the first place," he said.

Industry officials said the bill was unnecessary.

Stephanie Hobbs, a spokeswoman for the Yellow Pages Association, said most reputable providers already allow consumers to stop delivery.

"We feel the marketplace should determine how many phone books are delivered," she said.

Dan Long, an attorney with the N.C. Utilities Commission, said state regulations require phone companies to provide directories to customers, but nothing in state law spells out when not to provide them. He said that may be one reason for their proliferation.

"I guess there is a little phone book fatigue," he said.