ALBANY —The New York State Public Service Commission (Commission) today granted Verizon and its directory publisher permission to stop printing and delivering business telephone books to its customers, allowing Verizon to close the book on its business telephone book.

“Due to the proliferation of alternative sources for obtaining telephone numbers and directory information, including the internet, there is no longer a need to mandate the blanket distribution of printed directories,” said Commission Chair Audrey Zibelman. “Aside from not harming consumers’ ability to receive directory information, we now can avoid the unnecessary printing of paper directories, an environmentally sound option.”

With today’s order, Verizon will only deliver business or residential directories to customers who request a printed copy. Most customers, Verizon argues, get their listings today from the Internet, leading to thousands of discarded phone books. Verizon will no longer be required to print and deliver “white page” directories that include alphabetical listings of all business customers, along with government phone listings, yellow page advertisements and consumer guide pages. In 2010, New York gave Verizon permission to stop delivering phone books with residential listings. That move eliminated approximately 13,600 tons of paper per year from the waste stream, according to Verizon.

In 2015, Verizon and its partners delivered 6.3 million business directories. Today’s decision applies only to Verizon, the State’s largest telephone company. The other 38 local telephone companies in New York, such as Frontier, Windstream and Taconic, will continue to provide such directories, unless they too successfully petition for a change.

Doing away with printing business directories will have a material, positive effect on the environment and will help customers who have no use for printed directories. Expansion of the opt-in program to business and government listings will eliminate significant volumes of paper waste per year. Another reason for dropping the business phone book is that today’s telephone books do not include the growing number of phone numbers for wireless customers or numbers provided by Internet telephone services (VoIP).

Currently, and only upon request, Verizon and its publisher Dex Media Inc. provides printed residential white page directories in 10 states, including New York, and Washington, DC. Verizon is no longer required to distribute printed residential or business listings in six states; New York would be the seventh. All told, there are 40 states where residential white page directories are delivered only upon request.

With the decision, Verizon will make residential, business, and government white page directory listings, including its consumer guide, available to customers online at no charge or in printed form, also at no charge at: www.verizon.com/support/consumer/phone/white-pages. The elimination of the business directories will not be immediate, but will occur gradually based on market conditions with advance notice to customers.