Residents encouraged to recycle their Yellow Pages

Shropshire residents are being asked to recycle their old Yellow Pages, now that the new ones have been delivered.

Yellow Pages and all types of telephone directory can simply be placed in kerbside recycling boxes along with newspapers and magazines for collection, or taken to a paper recycling bank.

With each directory weighing around 1.7kg, this means more than 200 tonnes of waste paper will be generated by old Yellow Pages in Shropshire alone.  All Yellow Pages are collected mixed with the rest of your paper and sent to Shotton Paper Mill near Chester, to make newspaper print.

Councillor Mike Owen, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member with responsibility for waste and recycling, said:

“Recycling Yellow Pages is simple – just put them in your paper recycling box and then put it on the kerbside for collection.  The plastic wrapper should be removed first, if recycling new ones.  By recycling Yellow Pages we help support UK manufacturing  as well as reducing the amount of waste which goes to landfill and thus protecting the environment.”

Further information

Across the whole of the UK more than 75 million phone books are left on the doorsteps of UK homes and businesses each year by Yellow Pages, BT and Thomson, which results in a staggering 62,000 tonnes of waste paper every year.

Recycling a tonne of paper saves around 3500 kWh – enough energy to power an average house for one year.  So recycling phone books helps to reduce our carbon emissions as well as helping to reduce waste to landfill.

If you want you can opt out of delivery of phone books completely and use the web-based and telephone-based services instead.  Simply contact the companies and ask to be removed from their distribution lists.  For more information visit www.saynotophonebooks.org