place that there's someone that allows them to distribute in larger quantities. the ordinance also requires the city to undertake a robust outreach effort on different ways in which people can get their yellow pages, with a particular emphasis for seniors, are disabled, and anyone who needs help. a recent poll showed that 87% of the public supports a policy whereby they received a phone book only if they request it. i think this is a common-sense proposal, and i thank the individuals that have been working with us on as proposal, including many members of the city family. what i would like to do at this point is ask a couple of representatives of various city departments to make comments about the legislation, starting with the department on the environment. i would like to invite of the director of the department of environment to make a presentation. >> thank you. good afternoon, supervisors. i'm the director of the san

francisco department of the environment, and the department is pleased to have the opportunity to provide the land use committee with our perspective on the yellow pages distribution pilot project ordinance before you today. we support this legislation because it will help us to forward our city's 0 with goals. san francisco, as you probably know, is the nation's top recycler. san francisco recycles over 1.6 million tons of material in 2008, which is twice the weight of the golden gate bridge. we said less than 600,000 tons to landfill, which is our lowest the disposal rate on record. san francisco's success is due in part to the comprehensive easy-to-use programs we have set up with our partner, recology, and also the enthusiastic reception of the residence. but the enthusiastic success in policies enacted by the board of supervisors over the years that set up.

the board of supervisors established a goal of obtaining 75% landfill diversion by 2010 and zero waste by 2020, which is critical to keeping us focused on the end results. we have exceeded our short-term goals, and we have reached a 77% landfill diversion rate. san francisco then enacted a construction and demolition ordinance that requires a version of materials from construction projects. we were also the first city in the nation to enact a mandatory composting and recycling ordinance, which requires everyone in the city to recycle and compost. these policies have been very successful. however, recycling itself is not a total 0-waste solution. when we talk about the three r's -- reduce, reuse, recycle -- source reduction is the highest principle. in making sure that everything that can be recycled is recycled, it is also critical to

reduce the size of the overall waste stream. the city has taken action in the past to limit the amount of problematic materials in our waste stream. materials that represent an egregious waste of resources and a problematic in the recycling process. san francisco restricted the distribution of plastic bags at supermarkets and drugstores. alternative bags are readily available, as plastic bags contaminate our recycling system. similarly, we restricted the distribution of styrofoam food containers that food service establishments because there are recyclable and/or, possible alternatives -- compostable alternatives. this will reduce waste and reduce the size of san francisco's overall waste stream. also, as you will see shortly, phone books are problematic in the recycling/sorting process. phone books are a valuable information resource, and like

all resources, they should be treated with care. this ordinance will increase the value of all phone directories as an information tool by distributing them only to people who use them and will help us get one step closer to our goals. i like to call in a few department of the environment staff to comment on a few aspects of the legislation. first, you will hear from our residential zero-waste coordinator. he will talk about the impact of telephone books in the waste stream. then you will hear from our climate action a coordinator. she will discuss the greenhouse gas implications of this ordinance. finally, you will hear from our public outreach manager to comment on the ways we're planning to get the word out about this legislation. i will pass it on now to kevin. >> thank you, supervisors.

ashley, a supervisor -- actually, supervisor chiu discussed this already, the staggering number of phone books delivered in our city. i believe the valley pages are being delivered to people's doors right now. the at&t pages were delivered in december. there is now the second round, and that is how we get to the to we will books for every person in san francisco. our department and the team fully supports the legislation as a critical part of obtaining our 0 with a goal -- our zero- waste goal. it is about $300 a ton for that material to be recycled or landfill, so that the total cost to the ratepayers is over $1 million. as well, in our recycling system, you are going to see a little video here.

what you are seeing there, actually -- i'm trying to get the video part to work, but in the center of that picture is a phone book. this is the sorting system that our primary facility for recyclables. they sort of sit in the middle and do not move up or down, while all the other materials in our system have to keep moving along through the sorting system. because of this, we have had to add a separate conveyor line with have to pick the phone books of separately and put them on to an additional line we had to add. this is one of the things that

adds to the cost of processing phone books in san francisco. sorry that the video did not quite work. but this is the kind of thing that melanie was talking about as a problematic material in our system, and these are the kinds of things we are taking steps to reduce or eliminate if possible. thanks. >> hello. my slide is really boring, so i'm mostly going to talk to you a little bit. in the climate coordinator with the department of environment. san francisco has already committed to goals and policies to address climate change by reducing our carbon footprint. these goals are in line with the state bowls. in many cases, they go farther. additionally, last year, the city and county of san francisco was directed by our local air

district to specifically include emissions from waste in our greenhouse gas inventory and climate plan and let her hear from the air district, which i will submit to you all today. then, -- this piece of legislation before you supports these municipal, state, and regional goals that we have a climate-wise. the second question i usually get is -- how much carbon is this going to say? the big savings here in carbon reductions actually comes not from the phone books being recycled, which is good -- better than going to landfills -- but from them not been produced at all or fewer of them being produced. in fact, if we were able to not produce these phone books, we would save about 20,000 tons of carbon each year. those numbers are in line with our city's standard as greenhouse gas system and were developed in support with big

league. those are numbers to give you some context of what that means. that is about the same of 2000 census the president's going carbon neutral. so it is pretty significant. -- that is about the same as 2000 san francisco residents going carbon neutral. no level of aborted emissions should be considered too small to merit action. this is particularly true, as the supreme court noted, that agencies and legislatures do not generally resolve massive problems in one fell regulatory swoop. instead, they whittle away at them over time, referring to preferred approach is. as circumstances change, developing a more nuanced understanding of how best to proceed. this yellow pages distribution program represents exactly that kind of careful detailed policy making that is necessary in every sector of our economy in order to address the enormous challenges of climate change. we will also be submitting that letter to you for review.

finally, i think the most important aspect of this legislation is that it will help us transition away from an economy that is really based on resource-intensive nature, using our supplies of water, would, fuel, and energy, to one that is modernized in a virtual system of exchange of information. thank you very much. >> good afternoon, supervisors. the elegant thing about this ordinance is that anybody that wants the yellow page has the right and ability to get one. and the city can help get the word out about the many ways available to arrange to have one delivered to you or picked one up. the city can provide outreach to let residents know how to deal of pages in the number of ways, including assertions in regular publications. we can also dedicate buildings

as thick of locations such as branch libraries, recreation centers, and the city hall. there are approximately 180,000 senior citizens in san francisco, and the city serves the neediest 20,000 or so through senior centers and mail deliveries, so out reach to the population can be done in conjunction with aging and adult services. this gives us the opportunity to partner with mda, as well. the bus shelters, bus stops, any of a number of ways to get the information out there -- partner with the mta. supportive housing and other residences. we can adopt techniques but are sound, such as placement in specialized retail outlets, pharmacies, senior centers, and so on. the environment department, we do hundreds of events every year, street parties, farmers'

markets. you name it, we are there. we have people who speak chinese and spanish, so we are wanting to get the word out to them, as well. supervisor mar: could i just ask you again, which have the divide that you would reach out to where the yellow page -- >> folks with disabilities and also non english speakers. >> so, in closing, as you have heard, san franciscos are doing their part, but we do need to address this. this stance to have a significant impact on reducing unnecessary waste in san francisco and will bring our city one step closer to realizing our 0-wasteful. we want to thank supervisor

chiu, as well as supervisors w iener and mar. thank you very much. supervisor mar: i know there is a representative here from recology, who is a partner with our city. i would like to invite upper -- up paul. >> good afternoon. as a company who is partnering with the city to get to zero ways, i believe we need to work towards this, and it seems asking for a phone book is a good start to that. because of the physical properties of the phone books, they are a challenge to recycle. we cannot use our mechanical sorting equipment to do it. they have to be sorted manually, so we have installed conveyor

belts in need to pull them off of that line manually to get them recycled. another problem is they get delivered in plastic bags, and they have to actually take them out of the plastic bags, and the plastic bags that do get through the system can wrap around the recycling equipment and can also contaminate the bales of paper. et that is it. thank you. supervisor mar: there was a video that was not able to work. can you share something about that? >> the phone books, because of their weight, they are kind of -- there is a screen, and it has spinning stars, and the paper floats up the incline, and bottles and cans drop down onto a second conveyor belts, so the phone books will either drop down, where the bottles or cans ago, where they will just sit

and spin on the equipment and kind of jam up the screens, so we have to stop equipment and get them removed off before we can start processing again, so we try our best to get them off a be acquitted before they get to the stars screens. -- get them off of the equipment before they get to the start -- star screens. supervisor mar: i want to read a few excerpts, and the note is from an individual who resides in a unit in an apartment building and states that each year, 35 sets of phone books get delivered to our building. the tenants do not use them. it is our responsibility of building managers to dispose of them. this is a horrible waste of energy, paper, and our time, not to mention the environment, to have to deal with this, and, obviously, this is someone who

supports this particular policy. were you able to get the film to work? so, again, that is depicted a telephone book on the middle of the conveyor belt, not able to get up, the sheets of paper, and not dumped in the bottom because it is heavy like glass or bottles. it hangs there until one of your employees has to manually take off and place it on to one of the phone books. thank you. thank you. the next person i would like to call up to the podium is executive director of the small business commission. i know that the industry has put out a fairly intense campaign that this legislation will somehow harm small businesses, and we had a very robust discussion at the small business

commission, and i wanted to invite our executive director to talk about that. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am the director of small business. in your committee packet is the official recommendations from the small business commission, and the commission does recommend approval. the small business commission role is to review, evaluate, and provide recommendations to the board of supervisors on proposed legislation on policy matters that affect small business. the commission evaluates proposed policy matters on its implication to business operations, costs to do business, job creation, and will be policy matter improve the overall environment of doing business in san francisco. in february, the small business commission heard the program. and this is what their findings are. the commission recognizes and

wants to make very clear that this was not a ban on yellow pages. small businesses will still be able to advertise, and an opt in option will more likely comprised of a more likely audience for the advertisers. the commission is also very confident in the department of environment's robust public outreach campaign as part of this trial, and the commission is confident that the phone book directories will reach those that choose to receive delivery of the product. the commission supports the environmental benefits and reduce costs to dispose and recycle unwanted copies. therefore, supervisors, the small business commission does recommend that you approve the small business by the program and that by approving this legislation, the impact and the environment of which small business operates in in san francisco, this will be of minimal impact to them. supervisor mar: thank you.

and one last speaker before we go into public comment. there is a university of california berkeley professor here. professor, if you could, please approached the podium. i know you have been an expert at looking at market research, and in particular, you have looked at the solution of self regulation and a potential opt out program, and whether or not -- i am wondering if you could say a few words. >> thank you, supervisors. i teach law, including computer crime law. default rules, opt-in and opt- out, those are key, and it is a suboptimal choice if your policy goal is to reduce unwanted

waste, because most people will not opt out. if you think about opt out, it requires that the individual know about the problem. it requires knowing that something can be done about the problem. it requires them to learn about the problem, to do something about it, and then, finally, for the action that they take, that action has to be effectuated. that actually opt-out choice has to be effectuated. these are subject all sorts of problems. for instance, if i do not want the yellow pages, i may not know how to do a google search to opt out the term "-- to opt out. the term "top out -- "opt out" may not be in my mind. some are companies that say they will not take third party it

copped out -- third party opt- outs, and if you want to, you have to show them your driver's license or birth certificate, or something. and then there is a very famous case involving at&t, involving the telephone companies in california, figuring out how to tell consumers about their right so they will not exercise it, so they literally did research to make it so that people would not opt out. that decision is reported, and then, finally, i just wanted to point out that because of conflicts, opt out is not a great solution in this field. opt out can work if the person administering this is an independent third party, such as the government.

at berkeley, we do a lot of public polling, and to do it right requires that you do a random sample. inherently, any research that comes out from an internet sample is not random and therefore has no external validity. basically, those on-line surveys are done based on people responding to advertising. it is not that useful for public policy. it is good for marketing. think you, sir. -- thank you, sir. supervisor mar: i have had i think three meetings in the past months to talk about other ways

of addressing the issue of the distribution of the yellow pages, and there is self regulation through this opt out mechanism, and i was told that if their program is put into place, this would likely reduce the number of yellow pages 985% or 10%, and from what i understand, this has not worked in other jurisdictions that have tried this. of the millions of phone books, we might see 5% or 10% of san francisco is opting out. i know that seattle tried this and found that self regulation, these opt out programs, did not work. can you comment about what you know about other jurisdictions that have tried to do this? >> i started out by talking about the five barriers to opt out. you have to know about it, know that you can do something about it, etc., and that leads to very low levels of octet out -- of

opt out. banks are allowed to sell information to telemarketers. nobody wants that, but they do not know that they have to opt out. less than 5% of americans opt out of information sharing at the bank. you think that something as sensitive as your financial information, to sell it on an opt out basis, and you only get a 3% or 4% of the out, you're going to find a similar number with phone books or other items. whether or not the program is going to be successful, if it is opt out controlled by the industry, you are not going to get more than 10%. supervisor mar: thank you very much. >> thank you. supervisor mar: at this time, i would like to move to public comment, but there are questions

that i have proposed -- the best ideas from the public on what we do here, and i would like to summarize three questions that i have 4 folks to think about, and if you want to address them, particularly, the opponents of this legislation, i would like to hear good ideas. the first is around open -- over distribution and why the over distribution of phone books is a practice and apparently a best practices of the industry. but what you hear what you justify that san franciscans should receive multiple copies every year. i know the industry has set a sustainability report, but from everyone who has looked at these reports, it seems that if the industry is serious about sustainability, they have to figure out how to stop mass over distribution, and what i can figure out here is up there is no way to stop that mass distribution but for the legislation that we have in front of us today. the second thing i images did is we have received a lot of emails

from folks from the industry -- the second thing is that we have received a lot of emails. this is going to affect jobs, as well. we have learned through our research that the yellow page research -- industry justifies its rates based on inflated circulation numbers. i know we will probably hear otherwise from folks in the audience, but there were some that did research to get quotes on the price of ads, and we were quoted advertising rates based on circulation numbers but i just described. the third thing i wanted to ask is to get some feedback on this issue of self regulation. we continue to your consistently that self regulation does not work, and as i said, the industry has stated that that is the best answer to this question, but i have got to think that there is something better that we can do. so all of that being said, i have many, many cards with us

today, and i would like to ask each speaker to limit the comments of of to two minutes, so if i can ask this because -- speakers to please line up in the center line, especially the number first person -- please line up in the center aisle, as i will start with the first person from the green chamber. [reading names] from the community housing partnership. if you could please line up, and for speaker, you can start speaking as soon as you get up there. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am -- with the green chamber of commerce. the yellow pages is currently conducting a campaign with businesses, claiming that the proposed pilot program will put the yellow pages of a business and eliminate this channel of advertising. we believe that this argument is deceptive and falls. the yellow pages produces dozens

of books with lower distribution. 31,000 250 dozen books. other figures include grass valley in nevada city. napa valley of 70,000. another two equal 90,000. if the new pilot program requires them to reduce their distribution figures from their current combined 1.6 million, this will not put the san francisco books of business. point number two. higher labor costs are sustainable. we do not believe this will result in higher labor costs inevitably for the industry. they already do significant individual drop-offs through their secondary distribution. newcomers to move to the city can call to request a

directorate harriett increased individual dropouts will not radically engage people. furthermore, the industry makes enough profit to meet any increased labor costs. it represents up to 35% to 40% of revenue. alone in 2008, $50.90 million. point number two, this is sustainable. the non english manufacturers and others have proven that this distribution is not necessary for successful yellow pages. they pay high lyric book -- higher labor costs to do so and are still successful. it does not rely on one-time yearly distribution. supervisor mar: thank you very much. next speaker. >> thank you, president chiu. we are based here in san