The Association of Directory Publishers is a 110-year old trade association that represents the interests of publishers of both printed and online directories. I serve as ADP’s President and Chief Executive Officer and am writing both to correct factual errors in the Wired magazine insert on Chevrolet’s Eco-Campaign and to provide some general information on the industry’s record of environmental responsibility.

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.

I haven’t used a printed directory in years and it really ticks me off when they dump the books on my steps. And somehow it always seems to happen when we’re out of town. I can stop the mail, set he lights on timers, and yet when I come home there’s a big soggy yellow bag sitting on my steps saying, “rob this house!”

I’ve tried calling for years but have never been able to get them to stop. And to add insult to injury, some poor schlubb is paying to advertise because they say I’m using the book.

I sure would love to see if they have figured out how to get the directory publishers to stop littering on my property.

I live in an apt. building – each year I see stacks of these things piled in our lobby. Nobody picks one up – they all go straight to the dump.