phone book recycling

Legislation is faltering in Minnesota to establish an 'opt-in' system for people who really want to get phone books delivered to them. Instead, the phone book publishing business says that the collapse of phone book recycling systems is not its fault, and it should be allowed to pursue voluntary measures...which is what every other waste generator has said since the dawn of environmental laws.

The result: 85 percent of the telephone directories are dumped into the regular trash, even though it has been illegal to do so since 1992. State pollution officials call it one of Minnesota's biggest solid-waste problems.