When Yellow and White Equals Green; Pacific Bell Recycles Telephone Books Into Payment Envelopes

Business Wire, Nov 9, 1995

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 9, 1995--Millions of Californians will soon find old telephone directories turning up as new envelopes in their monthly telephone bills. Pacific Bell this week began using green-colored recycled paper for the payment remittance envelopes inside more than 150 million phone bills it sends to customers each year.

Pacific Bell is now the largest user of recycled old telephone directory paper in the state and one of the largest in the nation. The new khaki green envelopes are made from 100 percent recycled material. At least 50 percent of the envelope's content comes from old telephone directories recycled by Pacific Bell Directory and others.

"These new envelopes made of recycled telephone directories make good environmental and business sense," says Dan Hammalian, Pacific Bell director of statewide bill processing. "This joint effort between directory publishing and customer billing creates an important new paper market for recycled directories."

Both Pacific Bell White Pages and Yellow Pages in old directories are now being used to make paper for the new envelopes. Then, after the payment checks are removed, the envelopes can be recycled many times to make additional envelopes or other recycled paper products, Hammalian said.

Using recycled envelopes will redirect tons of old telephone directories from landfill sites, reduce chemical wastes and improve the environment, while slightly reducing billing production costs.

In 1994, over 6,000 tons of old telephone books--the equivalent of about 18,000 cubic yards of landfill space--were diverted from landfills through Pacific Bell Directory's recycling efforts in California. Today, the recycled directories are reappearing not only as new payment remittance envelopes, but as new telephone directories, cardboard boxes, egg cartons, cereal boxes, newsprint and other paper products.

"We commend Pacific Bell and Pacific Bell Directory for expanding their use of recycled telephone directories," says Marlene Meyer, executive director of the Recycled Paper Coalition, a Bay Area-based national coalition of major paper users that promotes the efficient use of paper and the purchase of "environmentally-preferred" paper products.

The recycled paper Pacific Bell uses is made by Simpson Paper Company in Pomona, CA through a process developed by Gallaher Paper Company of Atlanta, GA. The envelopes are manufactured by Westvaco at a plant in Los Angeles.

Pacific Bell and Pacific Bell Directory are subsidiaries of Pacific Telesis Group, a San Francisco-based diversified telecommunications corporation. -0-

Note to Editors: Transparency or Photo Available Upon Request

CONTACT: Pacific Bell

Beverly Butler, 415/542-9468 (Bay Area)

Dave Miller, 916/972-2811 (Sacramento)

John Britton, 619/237-2430 (San Diego)

Linda Bonniksen, 213/975-5061 (Los Angeles)

Bill Fuller, 212/688-5000 (Westvaco)