Seattle cracks down on yellow-pages deliveries

Yellow Pages used to advertise "let your fingers do the walking." Starting Thursday, Seattleites can let their fingers do the typing to keep the hefty directories from piling up on their porches.

Under a new city ordinance, if a directory is delivered to a resident who has used the website www.seattle.gov/stopphonebooks at least 30 days before the scheduled delivery, yellow-pages publishers can be fined up to $125. The ordinance also imposes a 14-cent fee for every book delivered.

The crackdown — the first of its kind in the nation — is being championed by City Councilmember Mike O'Brien, who says residents are tired of phone books cluttering their houses. On top of that, O'Brien says, 2 million yellow-pages books are recycled in Seattle every year at a cost of $350,000.

"The city of Seattle cares about the environment and it's extremely frustrating to return home someday to find five pounds of yellow pages on your porch that you're never going to use," O'Brien said.

Neg Norton, president of the Local Search Association — formerly the Yellow Pages Association — pointed out that his group has its own website that he says can handle opt-out requests. He worries a second website will confuse consumers.

"We think that it's redundant and unnecessary," Norton said. "We've had a site up since February 1 — www.yellowpagesoptout.com — that has successfully processed hundreds of thousands of directories leaving the market."

O'Brien countered, "The main difference is theirs is voluntary. They can choose to obey what you put in there or not. Ours is mandatory, and we enforce it."

The council member opted out last year only to receive yellow pages at his door two months later. Frustrated, he announced on his website that people could drop off unwanted books at his office, and was amazed when nearly 1,000 flooded in.

"People were upset enough to drive downtown, park their car, walk up to the second floor and drop them off," O'Brien said. "Even people who use the yellow pages say, 'I don't need three copies, just this one.' "

Three companies deliver yellow pages in the city of Seattle: Dex, Yellowbook and Verizon Superpages. Norton's Local Search Association is one of the parent companies of those three distributors — along with Dex One and SuperMedia.

Together they filed a federal lawsuit last November that claims the Seattle ordinance violates the companies' First Amendment right to free speech. Norton expects a ruling to be "fairly imminent."

Seattle homes and businesses receive almost 17,500 tons of unwanted paper each year — about 100 pounds of waste per household, according to research by the U.S. Postal Service and Seattle Public Utilities.

Yellow pages account for roughly 2 percent of that waste. Junk mail creates more waste, but the city had to start somewhere, O'Brien said.

Residents can use the website to cancel junk mail as well, but companies that ignore the opt-out won't be fined.

David Krueger: 206-464-2212 or dkrueger@seattletimes.com