This is a great idea. It’s a service that allows you to opt out of receiving telephone books. I’ve gotten three or four unnecessary, unwanted, unsolicited phone books in the last year. I walked all but the last straight of them to the recycling bin behind my house without ever taking them into my apartment. (I was in a bad mood when the last one showed up, so I just hurled it on the sidewalk and left it there.)

Here are a few facts that I think phone book printers ought to be aware of:

• There’s this new thing called the “Internet” that’s updated more than once a year.
• The majority of the people I know only own cell phones, so they wouldn’t be in a phone book even if I didn’t already have them in my contact list.
• If someone is under 40 years old, it will never even cross his or her mind to look in a book for a phone number or address.  That’s what the Internet is for.
• I consider phone books to be a step down from litter.  At least with litter, no one paid money to compile, print, and deliver it before I throw it away.  Phone book manufacturers, on the other hand, killed a few dozen trees in order to leave me their trash.  Way to go.

There’s no national “Stop Leaving Your Garbage On My Doorstep” list, so it’s voluntary for the phonebook manufacturers to comply with the request.  I’m hoping it works.