"When you have technology now for getting at that information, you start scratching your head, wondering 'Why are we still doing this?'" said /*state Senator Leland Yee*/ (D-San Francisco).
Yee has introduced a bill that would reverse the law requiring the phone companies to automatically deliver the white pages to people's homes. Customers would have to "opt in" to receive it.
The goal is to be more environmentally friendly. More than a million trees are cut down for the directories, one-third of that for white pages alone.
"This just represents a waste of paper, a waste of resources and ultimately a waste in our landfill; only 20 percent get recycled," said Mark Murray, executive director of /*Californians Against Waste*/.
Cash-strapped local governments end up bearing the costs of disposing the rest.
The phone-book industry opposes the restrictions. The /*Yellow Pages Association*/ says the books are used 14.5 billion times a year across the country.
Some of that is for residential look-ups, and you don't have to look farther than a seniors center to find folks who want their white pages to keep coming.
"I am still going to use the telephone book to look up a number. I'm still going to a dictionary to look up a word," said Bubbles Miguel. "I am coming, kicking and screaming into the computer age."
"I use it all the time. I would say several times a week," said Christine Hardiman.
Committee hearings begin next month and California could soon follow in the footsteps of Cleveland and Miami.
