Martin Dupras

The other day I came home to find a brand new copy of the Yellow Pages phone book. Wrapped in plastic no less.

When’s the last time you used one? Personally, I don’t remember using one this century.

I understand that some people may want it, but most of us probably don’t. Now, with daily reminders about reducing waste and recycling packaging, it strikes me that there is a double standard here.

In the UK, the population is about 60 million. If we estimate from that there are say, 20 million homes, that is a lot of unwanted bulky paper wasted, and that’s not counting the plastic it came wrapped in.

The point is that, just like junk mail, it is not requested and often not wanted and it adds to our waste. Now that some city councils are imposing fines for having more rubbish than a given quota, I find it even more insulting that we are then lumbered with that extra rubbish.

They’re hand-delivered too, which means you can’t just “return to sender.”

So why do we tolerate this?