I called the phone books a giant waste (which I know I am not the first to do), and now it would appear that Boston.com has taken notice as well.

They’re the original search engines, leftover from the days of rotary phones and answering machines. Once valued reference books kept in a certain drawer or cabinet for easy and frequent access, the massive telephone directories landing on doorsteps and in apartment foyers across the city in recent weeks seemed bound for more ignoble destinations.
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Days after hundreds of thousands of the 2,000-page, 4-pound tomes were delivered, they began showing up in recycling bins and trash dumpsters. From Beacon Hill to Jamaica Plain, they moldered on porches and driveways, lay strewn across sidewalks, and sat in large, untouched piles in condo and apartment buildings.

The full story here.