Information orphans of the Google era, unwanted telephone books are accumulating in front of people’s homes everywhere, creating an eyesore, a nuisance, and a timely reminder of a bygone era. I think I receive seven or eight a year.

Photo: SantaCruz.com

Phone books aren’t the only fallout generated by technological advance. We’re still experiencing an e-waste hangover from CRTs (which probably don’t cause cancer after all), replaced by more compact, greener LCDs. And yesterday, I noticed a cart outside of a conference room stacked with e-junk, including two fax machines and — wait for it — a typewriter. For a moment I thought I was on the corporate equivalent of a ghost ship or maybe attending a steampunk conference.

According to the 2000 Census, there are 105 million households in the U.S. If these households each receive just two phone books a year, weighing, say, two pounds each, that’s over 200,000 tons of potentially wasted paper dumped unceremoniously curbside and on doorsteps each year. In many places, the books just sit there and rot.

I actually like the phone book. There’s nothing better for looking up the hours or address of a local business, or finding a plumber or mechanic. And the phone book is more trustworthy than Yelp and other user-generated, hyperlocal reviews. There’s no gaming the system in the yellow pages, no backroom deals. Whoever pays the most money can have the largest ad. It’s all spam, so I don’t have to differentiate. And the claims come from the business owners, so I know their biases.

According to the Santa Cruz Sentinel, one Boulder Creek resident decided to do something about the problem. “(Hilary) Stanley counts 16 trips to the recycling center just last year, shoving as many as 120 discarded books per trip in the back seat of her car. ‘They’re just dumped out of a van on Highway 9 and other main arteries, and there they sit.’”

Some phone companies are reducing the size of print runs. Others are agreeing to clean up unwanted books within a few days of delivery. And consumers can call directory publishers and ask to be taken off delivery lists, but like so many other things, the question remains, why deliver something to me I didn’t ask for in the first place, and why make me responsible for ending deliveries?

All this made me wonder — what physical thing will be the next to disappear or fall into decline, thus contributing to the next wave of articles made obsolete by technology?