Twenty-six seconds.
That was the elapsed time between the delivery of our “Dex” phone books and their arrival in our recycle bin.
It has been a couple of years since any phone book has made it into our house from the front porch. Pounds of paper wrapped in a plastic bag. I used to bring them in out of some bizarre sense of guilt. Trees had been sacrificed. Gas used to delivery them. All sorts of compounds went into the ink for the bright “the phone book’s here” colors. But there they would sit in my office, gathering dust for several months before they ended up in the recycle bin.
The time has come. The time for citizens to be given the option to “opt out” of receiving physical phone books. Or even better, an “opt in” policy.
Fortunately, that time maybe coming sooner than later. Seattle City Councilmember Mike O’Brien has been pondering the value of physical phone books and their impact on our city.
Mike says in his post:
“So what do we do next? I’ve decided to take up a collection. If you receive unwanted phone books, I encourage you to bring them down to city hall and drop them off for my office, and I will store them here as we ponder what to do next. It would be even better if you attached a brief story about your unwanted phone books: Do you not use Yellow Pages at all? Do you use Yellow Pages, but feel you can go without multiple copies? Do you have a favorite brand? What steps have you taken previously to stop receiving phonebooks and did it work? Or maybe you feel the existing phonebook system works well for you? If you don’t want to lug your unwanted yellow pages into city hall but have a story to share, please post it here.
As we continue to formulate our policies on reducing waste, I look forward to hearing from you.”
Read Mike O’Brien’s whole post here.
So here is your chance to help stop the delivery truck-to-porch-to-recycle bin tango. Go to Mike’s office with your unwanted phone book or go to his page above and leave your comments.
Maybe if we can’t convince the industry to give us an “opt in” policy … maybe each residence can at least opt to have their phone books delivered directly into their recycle bins.











The Seattle BikeExpo was last weekend, and by the look of it, the bike scene is all about flashy sport gear, big organized rides, exotic tours, and power-sport-energy-nutrition-gonzo-bars. I nibbled a few bars, but I was really at the BikeExpo to attend a forum on “Bike Culture”. My general assumption was that the five panelists would talk about the integration of bikes into our modern, urban culture — the headway and the roadblocks.
I’ve been thinking about how we get more people riding bikes as their everyday short-trip vehicle of choice and think that targeting women is a key ingredient, and the marketplace in America has neglected this segment of potential riders and shoppers. Fewer bikes are made to fit women’s bodies and the majority of the gear sold at bike shops (and BikeExpos) does not address the needs of running the quick and easy errand, but instead continues to focus on the sport rides in spandex. When the time comes that you walk out of your house and automatically ride your bike to the grocery store in your neighborhood instead of hopping into your car to get the quart of milk or bottle of wine for dinner, then we’ll have an integrated bike culture.
Momentum is dazzling eye candy for women like me who want my bike to be an extension of who I am and how I choose to live, shop, work, and play. Momentum does for people on bikes what Dwell magazine does for lovers of modern, urban architecture and design. It makes me want. It makes me want to consume with its ads for beautiful city-geared bicycles, stylish bike bags, and life-style spotlights on people living — and making a living — as part of the two-wheeled culture. The fashion and stories show beautiful people living a dreamy life that I want to cultivate.






I also hope that this exercise in extreme local travel will help make me a better world traveler. How often I’ve been thousands of miles away in an exotic location, only to have my eyes and ears not truly take it all in. Wasted opportunities passing me by.


