Legislation to End Reign of Printed Telephone Directories in Maryland

Once upon a time, the voluminous telephone directory was regarded as a trusted reference source for looking up residential addresses, but Maryland Governor Martin J. O'Malley signed into law a bill specifying that Verizon (News - Alert) may not be required to automatically deliver printed white pages residential listings in the state.

Verizon, which provides telephone service to much of the state of Maryland, is in the midst of making its annual delivery. But it is likely to be the last. Starting next year, once the legislation goes into effect, the bulky volume will not make its way to the homes of residents in Maryland.

Other states in the country have also passed legislation to end the mandatory delivery of the residential white pages to residential areas. However, the residential directories either in print or in electronic form will be available on request. Residential numbers can be accessed from the Verizon whitepages website.

The move is expected to save more than 2000 tons of paper each year that translates into millions of dollars that will be saved by the company. That aside, a Verizon spokesman said that according to National studies only one in 10 people used these directories.

This reduction in the use of paper plays a key role in Verizon's corporate sustainability program. Previously, Verizon saved more than 573 million pages of paper when it resorted to paperless billing.

With mobile phones flooding the communication scene and more mobile numbers that are not listed coming into play, the bulky telephone directories do seem redundant. However, print directories containing business and government white pages, customer information pages and the yellow pages will continue to be delivered.

In a press release, William R. Roberts, president of Verizon in Maryland and Washington, D.C., said, "This new law benefits consumers and our environment here in Maryland. These days, there are so many ways to obtain residential phone listings. Now, people who don't use or want the residential white pages listings will not get them automatically delivered in paper form from Verizon each year. And, people who do use the listings will be able to look them up easily online or request free delivery of a print or CD-ROM version simply by calling a toll-free number. "Moving from automatic to on-request delivery of white pages listings also will save more than 2,000 tons of paper each year from Maryland's landfills.”