Say Goodbye to the Phone Book

Parents will have to find something else to sit their kids on at the dinner table.

Verizon will start delivering its latest edition of the northern Virginia Superpages this month.  After that - no more white pages will be mass-distributed in the Commonwealth.

Verizon put in the request last year to stop distributing the white pages, the traditional source for residential phone numbers.  The company said not printing a white page phonebook for every household would save 1,640 tons of waste every year.  As in many states, delivering a white page directory to every home was required by state law in Virginia.

This May, Virginia gave Verizon's request the OK.  Now, everything in the white pages is available online.  Customers who are web-phobic can request a free copy of the directory, or a CD-ROM version.

Virginia business directories and a listing of government services will still be delivered.

In Maryland, a similar measure was signed into law this year.  The bill, sponsored by Montgomery County Senator Robert J. Garagiola, says as long as homeowners are given notice, phone providers do not have to deliver a white page phonebook.

Verizon said in a press release today they hope to stop delivering white pages in D.C. by fall of 2011, too.