A Nov. 11 Butler Eagle article reporting on the coming demise of residential white pages telephone directories indicated that there are no plans to eliminate yellow pages directories.

According to the article, the Yellow Pages Association reports that business directories printed on yellow pages continue to do fine. The industry trade group says more than half of the people in the United States still use yellow pages every month.

But amid that disclosure a question remains: Why must there be so many different yellow pages directories serving the same area? Can’t the telephone companies combine their efforts and produce one comprehensive directory?

Butler County residents have in recent years written a number of letters to the editor complaining about the number of different telephone directories — white pages and yellow pages alike — that litter roadsides and properties during the directories’ distribution times.

Muddy, soggy directories can be eyesores for weeks until someone decides to pick them up and dispose of them.

Due to laziness or a desire to deliver a message that people don’t need three, four or more directories, many homeowners and renters merely ignore what they see as junk mail and refuse to have anything to do with them — to hell with the appearance of the countryside.

Why the telephone companies continue to ignore the message is puzzling, although advertising revenue probably is the reason.

Regarding white pages directories, a Gallup survey conducted for Dallas-based SuperMedia, which publishes Verizon Communications’ telephone directories, showed that between 2005 and 2008, the percentage of households relying on stand-alone residential white pages fell from 25 percent to 11 percent. Fewer people rely on paper directories for a number of reasons, including the fact that more people rely solely on cell phones, whose numbers typically are not included in white pages listings.

In addition, more listings are available online, and mobile phones and caller ID systems on land lines can store a large number of frequently called numbers.

Pennsylvania joined New York and Florida in the past month in approving Verizon’s request to quit distributing residential white pages. Virginia residents had until Friday to provide comment on a similar proposal for their state.

Eliminating white pages will cut the phone companies’ cost of doing business, and it will benefit the environment also.

With white pages elimination gaining strength, it’s time for the phone companies to address the yellow pages glut.

If they implement such a study soon, it’s likely they could put into place a process within a couple of years that would be welcomed by telephone users everywhere and benefit themselves for the long run.

The current telephone book glut is nonsensical.