Recycle your phone books

With new telephone books starting to arrive at homes and businesses throughout Monroe County, Cascades Recovery U.S. Inc, the company that operates the county’s recycling center, is reminding everyone that telephone book paper is 100-percent recyclable and

is used primarily to make new telephone books.

 If residents and businesses were to recycle all 1.2 million telephone books delivered in the area, it could keep 5,000 tons of recyclables out of landfills and potentially save 85,000 trees from being harvested to create new paper, according to Cascades Recovery.

Most telephone books distributed today are made from re-fabricated old telephone book pages mixed with some scrap wood to strengthen the fibers for re-use. Old telephone books are also recycled into such products as insulation materials, ceiling tiles, cardboard, paper towels, grocery bags, cereal boxes and office papers.

Residents may place old telephone books with newspaper, direct mail, cardboard and magazines in their recycling containers for curbside collection. Businesses are required to recycle office paper and may place their old telephone books with their paper.