Fourth and fifth graders from The Park School say, “Less phone books!” Instead of getting so many phone books you should be able to opt-out. Most people don’t use phone books, but they still get two of them a year. We want to petition the Massachusetts government to make it so that you can get out of getting phone books if you don’t want them.

This will help us make the earth more beautiful and the air clean. All of the phone books that you have stacked in your house that you never used, just wasted part of a tree that never had to be wasted. We need cleaner air! Reducing, reusing and recycling is important! Even if you recycle the phone book, it was already made, so it doesn’t really make a big difference. We need to reduce the amount made. Reducing is the best. Reusing is the second best. And recycling is the third. We want to do the best thing we can by reducing phone books, that way we save trees.

540,000,000 yellow phone books are made a year in the US. 7.2 million barrels of oil are used each year to make those phone books! 19,000,000 trees are destroyed each year to make phone books. 19,000,000 trees = 700 Central Parks. 540,000,000 books x 700 pages each = 378,000,000,000 pages made in the US each year. 540,000,000 books times 1.5 inches thick each = 12,784 miles of yellow pages phone books made each year in our country (if you could stack them). Divide that pile by 365 and you get a 35-mile tall pile of yellow phone books is made per day. That is way too many phone books!

Everybody in your town has to pay for trash removal for phone books with taxes! You shouldn’t pay for something that isn’t really worth paying for in the first place. Phone books = paper, paper = trees, trees = AIR!!!! Think about it. We at The Park School urgently saying, “Less phone books!”

You can help us ask the state to make a law to opt-out if you make the government notice us by signing our petition. You can go into bed happy that you have just made a difference. We don’t want to get rid of all phone books. We just want to get rid of unwanted phone books. We are petitioning the Massachusetts government to make a law to allow anyone to opt out of getting unwanted phone books! So help us by signing this petition.

by Ambrey, Zoe, Colin, Sarah, Samantha, Aria,

Caroline, Isabel, Emma, Priya, Charlotte, and Eliza