Where do I recycle used motor oil? Check the print Yellow Pages

In these tight economic times, it should not be a surprise that more people are changing the oil in their own car.  Heck, most guys in my generation grew up doing that, it’s not real difficult and you can save you a few dollars.

But then, what do you do with the used oil??

Here’s one solution:  look for recycling centers in the Yellow Pages –

How To Change Your Vehicle’s Oil and Filter
Used oil contains many harmful substances, so collect it in a suitable container – an empty windshield washer fluid bottle works well – and take it to a local recycling outlet (check your telephone Yellow Pages). …

How Do You Use Your Yellow Pages?

Maybe those that don’t believe in print Yellow Pages should take a look at these comments

Despite the negative news you may read online about the lack of value that print Yellow Pages brings in this wired, mobile, digital world, perhaps those naysayers should check out this small sampling of people that have nothing but praise for the value of the print media:

Without the Austin Yellow Pages I would not be able to find anything.
By admin
That is why the Austin Yellow Pages have come in so handy. In truth, without the yellow pages I would be completely lost. I would not be able to order pizza or Chinese food (and as such would probably starve) and I would not be able to …
Erec2006 – http://www.erec2006.com/

Where To Get The Best Discount Printer Cartridges In San Diego …
By admin
To find them, all you need to do is to pick up your yellow pages and look for the listings under office supplies. Caboodle Cartridge. Caboodle Cartridge is a franchise store located along Midway

Drive in San Diego. …
Free Articles – http://www.126126.info/

Dealing With Obsolete Computers
By Tara O’Sullivan, Truck Driver / Tattoo Artist(Tara O’Sullivan, Truck Driver / Tattoo Artist)
If your computer is broken, check your Yellow Pages for computer repair services and fix your existing computer before buying a new one. Find a computer reseller near you by visiting the database of national retailers at Recycler’s …
Take Action! – http://takeactionwithtara.blogspot.com/

Green Team’s weekend events promote eco-friendly effort
Hutchinson News – Hutchinson,KS,USA
The green-pages idea was born of a partnership between the AT&T Real Yellow Pages and Hutchinson’s Green Team and will update community information on …

Basement Remodeling – A Focus on Waterproofing
By Bob
When you have to do a remodeling job in your kitchen, simply open up the yellow pages and browse through the list of contractors who are available. Only thing you have to remember is that, selecting the largest advertisement may not …
basement-remodeling-blog.expertcarpen… – http://basement-remodeling-blog.expertcarpenter.com/

In Praise of the Lowly Print Yellow Pages

That’s the title from a new blog posting by Jeffrey Lee Simons at http://jlsimons.wordpress.com/2008/11/02/in-praise-of-the-lowly-yellow-pages/

Let me quote directly from his comments:

“You see, it seems that the lowly, lo-tech yellow pages has a ridiculous click thru rate.  According to a recent study, 78% of directory users contact an average of 2 businesses after referencing a directory.  The most popular action taken is picking up the phone, which happens 93% of the time.  But it’s not limited to a phone call: 31% show up in person, 10% go online, and 1% get in touch through the mail.

Those are monster numbers.  And when you consider that for many categories, there is far less noise and competition than Google, they’re even more compelling.”

Heck yes. They don’t call it a “browser” without cause. You “browse” the Internet, but when ready to make that local buying decision, the print Yellow Pages still offers the best ROI for a small business’s advertising dollars.  And when combined with an online presence in an IYP and/or some local search keywords, it provides a well rounded program for nearly every business.

The Value of Printed Yellow Pages in Your Car

From the Craptastic Nation! blog:

“…While hubby was in a store I sat outside in my car. To occupy my time I just opened the yellow pages of the phone book. (Note to others: I have found carrying a phone book can come in very handy.) It had a section where restaurants paid extra to get a full page where they print their menus. I found one that listed Greek food….”

The print Yellow Pages – the original search engine that requires no power, no special connections, and just a minute to find exactly what you want….

A Green Home Renovator’s Guide — Check the Print Yellow Pages

As we are considering some home remodeling ourselves, we came across an interesting site which bills itself as “…The complete Plenty manual for healthy, renewable, energy-efficient materials that will add value to your home and let you breathe a lot easier..” (link)

We noted one tip that was provided in the flooring discussion:

TIP: To find local old wood, check the yellow pages for demolition contractors and salvagers, says Matt Ford, a Houston designer who put a recycled gym floor in a new house.

The print Yellow Pages are the original search engine…

College Student Discovers Yellow Pages

New story in from “B” that came in over the weekend:

Yesterday, after dropping my daughter off at college, I needed to find the phone number for the airport.  Just needed to find out how early before the puddle jumper flight do I have to check in.  My daughter powers up her computer to check for me….and low and behold her access has not been updated since last year so she can’t get on the Internet.  As we were moving her into the dorm a truck with several hundred PDC phone books was being delivered to the entry way of the dorm.  I go get one, open it up and get the phone number for the airport.  Problem solved.

The other interesting note is that my daughter, after seeing there were coupons in the book took the book back to her room.  So much for the younger generation not using the books.

And a final comment about hotels taking the Yellow Page books out of the rooms — many hotel properties still charge for Internet access…so I would have to pay $9.95 just to get the Internet access to find out where to eat???  The books are so much easier.

And no one uses the books????

Another Example of Why Hotels Need Print Yellow Pages

Received this interesting email which confirms my belief that hotel rooms should all have printed Yellow Pages in them.  From J:

“…I was first traveling to Oregon to look at colleges for my son.  We stayed at mom and pop motels in 2 of the towns (Eugene and Corvallis).  Both had advertised “free internet”.  Well, when we got there the internet was down.  My son made a valient effort to get into some free Internet sites but to no avail.  So what can a person do when they need to find a restaurant to eat at????  Open the drawer and get that print Yellow Pages out!

Some may consider it a relic of the past, but it was a saving resource when we were hungry and out of town…”

Print Yellow Pages — the original search engine

Chamber of Commerce — We Need More Phone Books

In the Rochester, NY area it seems those old fashion Yellow Pages are still a bit hit. In a recent article from MPN.com (link here) the Canandaigua Area Chamber of Commerce director of membership and visitor services, Barb Walters, commented they actually could use more phone books:

“We run out of them.” The chamber is a drop spot for some 200 or more phonebooks annually. That is just the first drop. “Those go quickly,” said Walters. She typically has to request more sometime after the six-month mark, she said. She never knows exactly how many people will stop in wanting a phonebook, she said, but the requests keep up all year. Those wanting phonebooks include newcomers to the area, seasonal visitors, college students and anybody looking to familiarize themselves with area businesses and access phone numbers.

I know what the naysayers are going to suggest – why not just use the Internet? Isn’t that an easier way to get information and find phone numbers? The same article noted that isn’t necessarily the case:

Not according to a dozen or so people who responded to a random interview in downtown Canandaigua one recent afternoon.

They all made comments similar to Dawn Schneider, 28, a mother of two children, ages three and five.
“I use my phonebook,” said Schneider, who lives in Canandaigua.

In many ways it’s easier to look up a phone number or find a business in the phonebook than search the computer, she said.

Is she bothered by her old, outdated phonebooks?

“I just recycle them,” she said.

And some people think the 13 BILLION annual references that the industry has from its research are just make up. People, it’s real and the print products provide an invaluable information resource.

It Works Exactly As We Tell Our Customers It Does

Those were the exact words from KG in an email to me.  Here are the rest of her comments:

“Lifestyle events drive usage of the Yellow Pages. Here are some of the projects that had to be done to host a party for my daughter’s graduation. Stain the Decks, Paint the porch, Clean the Carpets, Pressure Wash the Decks and House, Buy Party Supplies, Order a Cake, Cater the main dishes, Rent a Tent ($300!), Table and Chairs ($125)! I had the additional pleasure of needing a Tree Service company to cut dead tree and branches out of my yard ($1300!), a plumber and an Air Conditioning Repair due to untimely problems (because that is just the way life works!).

The tent company would not come out for less than $300 plus fuel charges (I called 2 other companies to make sure the price was in line, which it was), plus it was a minimum of $125 for tables and chairs. Through discussion with the sales agent, I learned that during the same weekend they had over 100 jobs to set up and one of them was a huge event. If my order was average, that is $42,500 for the weekend in tent/table/chair rentals! These are the same customers that like to tell us our prices are too high.

The Tree service company charged $875 to remove the dead tree and $400 to clean dead branches out of 2 other trees. They did a great job — but arrived at my house at 7:00 pm and were gone by 8:00 pm!

This experience re-energized me about our wonderful products and drove home two very important points:

1. Lifestyle events DO drive usage of the products — (do you have a tent rental firm in mind? Or would you need to go to the Yellow Pages?). I also think about how Lifestyle events are more “recession proof”. When it’s your graduation party/marriage/student off to college, etc., there are certain things you are going to do — even if you’re trying to be more frugal in daily life.

2). Next, we provide our customers wonderful leads that are ready to buy and deliver a strong ROI, even if our customers don’t always want us to know how well the directory works!”

Well said……

Boycott Omni Hotels – Part 3

Let’s just make the numbers up.  That’s what’s happening all over the net with the recent ignorant decision by Omni Hotels to remove printed Yellow Pages/phone books from their guest rooms.

Here’s just a sampling of the junk they are spreading:

Richard Maxfield, senior vice president of operations for Omni Hotels: “ …Saying goodbye to phone books means Omni Hotels will preserve approximately 217,200 pounds of paper each year.   Our goal is to preserve more than 18,000 trees over the next decade. We feel good about the impact this initiative will have on the environment….”

Of course the reality is the reality is the Yellow Pages industry doesn’t knock down any trees for its paper. With publishers on average using about 40% recycled material (from the newspapers and magazines recycled curbside), and the other 60% comes from wood chips and waste products of the lumber industry. If you take a round tree and make square or rectangular lumber from it, you get plenty of chips and other waste. Those by-products make up the other 60% of the raw material needed. But why should those facts matter to Omni?

More jems: Omni estimated (somehow, someway) that it will save the following resources typically needed to produce the 60,000 phone books the hotels receive each year:

– 217 barrels of oil per year

– 760,200 gallons of water per year

– 445,260 kilowatts of energy per year

Where do they get these numbers from???? Why not just make them up from some other site you happen to find on the Internet. Crap. Pure crap.

The important part is that I am hearing from many of you in the industry who have joined this boycott to let Omni know this is bad decision. But we need more of you join in.

Or we can have more “James Scott”’s who commented at this one site that “…the most recent blog entry ((this site)), aims to boycott Omni hotels for this. I’m sure they’re shaking in their boots…”

Based on the comments I am getting, they should be. LETS BOYCOTT OMNI. NOW!!!!!