Phone Books: hypothetical, evenly distributed, highly probable fuel wasteage for one point-to-point

In a previous post, we at PoopBags announced our belief that the market decides whether a product will live or fail. Weave in this sentiment to that statement: we do not like to be encumbered or fettered by objects that are passive aggressively forced on us. So, we wonder, how do phone book companies stay in business considering the annoyance and opposition they spark these days?

The phone book’s failure is slowly coming from the other end. Advertisers have adroitly realized that the phone book’s ROI is rapidly decreasing. Indeed, SuperMedia reported that 2010 advertising sales declined 17.2 percent compared to 2009, which declined 18.8 percent compared to 2008. After a quick research flip through one of the two brands on our doorstep, we noticed almost no full page advertisements. The primary advertisers were car scrappers, home improvement and repair services, personal injury and bankruptcy law firms, insurance companies, veterinarians, car rental services, bicycle shops and massage services (wink). Notably, real estate, physicians, chiropractors, accountants and movers were barely present. Still, we wonder, why are there two different phone book brands at our doorstep? Why has the market not worked its magic and, at least, eliminated one?

Most articles or blogs point to how much paper is wasted or how much it costs the taxpayer to pay for recycling or disposal. Treehugger.com and Slate.com both had fact-based articles. As our friends over at Holstee pointed out, the phone book’s sustainability initiatives are admirable but the actual product is unwanted. YellowBook has a pretty cool stylized life cycle demonstration.

These are very important considerations. Yet, as a business, we cannot help but notice a very important component is missing in these posts: transportation. Personally, we are not surprised as it is impossible to find any sort of statistic, plant locations, or logistics. The best we found was a page in the YellowBook that stated that its printing plants are located close to distribution areas. What is considered close? Five miles? 1,000 miles? That's certainly a perceptional phrase. So, we decided to estimate the number of potential diesel gallons used to truck the finished product to a distribution center. Mind you, this calculation does not include gathering the various materials to manufacture the finished product such as the transportation from mill to printing press, the fuel gallons consumed from distribution center to doorstep, or the transportation from doorstep to recycling center or landfill. The results are still startling.

Calculations:
Lubbock Online reported that YellowBook USA, Inc., the largest phone book publisher, produced 128,000,000 phone books in 2008. Let’s assume that number has declined or averages 105,000,000 for the four major publishers – YellowBook, Dex, SuperMedia and RR Donnelly – for a grand total of 402,000,000 phone books produced each year.

The YellowBook’s new “eco-friendly size” on our doorstep is 9” L x 7” W x 3” H and weighs around 4 lbs.

Pallets are generally 40” x 48”. For these purposes, we’ll assume a pallet size is 36” x 49” so we can have whole numbers.

Ok, that pallet weight is unrealistic. So, let’s divide 672 by 3 and multiply it by 2.

Revised Number of Total Phone Books per Pallet: 448

Revised Pallet Weight: 1,792 lbs.

Now, maybe some of the phone books are shipped via rail, but we’ll assume all of it is transported by tractor trailer as it is still the most popular method to haul cross country.

Total Phone Books per Truck: 11,648

A 53’ trailer can hold 26 pallets.

Total Weight of Load: 26 pallets x 1,792 = 46,592 lbs.

Hypothetically, let’s assume there are six locations around the United States that manufacture finished product phone books. We chose these places because of….well…what locations appeared logical. These are probably more mill locations and not printing press plants, but it is all relative since the phone book companies are not fully disclosing. So we are left to assume. Now, if we really wanted to get way too mathematical, we would have split the phone book distribution based on population density. For these basic purposes, let’s just say it’s even steven.

Over 2,000,000 gallons of fuel or more expended on the trip from plant to distribution center for a product that’s unused and unwanted by the market. So what if the total gallons spent is less than estimated. The figure makes up for what was not accounted for as previously stated.

Mind you, we do believe phone books should be opt-in since not everyone has access to the internet or is computer literate. The phone book companies could still get their printing kicks by sending out a flyer via the mail for those who want to opt-in. The phone book companies state you can opt-out, but we have read it is a gruesome process.

If you want to advocate to stop the yellow, please join either or, preferably, both Stop Yellow Waste or Help Stop the Waste.

If anyone doubts our math - not our assumptions (unless you are the phone book company disclosing locations and coming clean) - please tell us. What are your thoughts?