April 17, 1996

NYNEX CONTACT: Media Relations, (212) 395-0500

Old Phone Books Never Die

They just come back as NYNEX phone bill envelopes.

As Earth Day approaches, it's deja vu all over again for NYNEX customers opening their monthly phone bills. Inside they're finding their old NYNEX directories -- reborn as payment remittance envelopes.

In an effort to develop additional uses for the thousands of tons of recycled White Pages and Yellow Pages directories each year, NYNEX is now supplying its customers with payment remittance envelopes made from 100 percent recycled paper, at least 75% of which comes from their old phone books.

The largest mailer to residents of the northeast United States, NYNEX each year sends its customers more than 127 million of these envelopes. Working with the U.S. Postal Service, a paper supplier and an envelope manufacturer, NYNEX has managed to institute the program at no additional cost. When the recycled envelopes come back to NYNEX, they are recycled again.

"By using recycled envelopes, we are creating a new, additional market for old directories," said Ken Teal, director of Environmental Issues for NYNEX Informational Resources Co., publisher of NYNEX's White Pages and Yellow Pages. "We've now created the opportunity for every phone book to be recycled and, in fact, are beginning to realize that the demand for old phone books happily is exceeding the supply."

Telephone directories make up less than one-half of 1 percent of waste in landfills, yet over the years NYNEX has made it easy for consumers to recycle them. NYNEX has made it possible for old phone books to be recycled in nearly every community it serves. Old directories also are used to make paper for phone books, cardboard boxes, wallboard, hydroseed mulch and other products.

Use of the recycled envelopes began in Buffalo, N.Y., where the company debuted its newly-designed, easy-to-read bills. The program is being introduced in phases throughout the NYNEX region through the second quarter of this year. In New England, the envelopes are being rolled out beginning this month in conjunction with Earth Day. Teal said the average NYNEX directory, which weighs 2.3 lbs., produces approximately 400 envelopes.

NYNEX publishes nearly 300 White Pages and Yellow Pages directories, distributing some 30 million copies to nearly every resident and business in New York and the New England states of Maine, Massachusetts, New Hamphshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, as well as parts of Connecticut. All of NYNEX's directories are printed on recycled paper, some of it made from old phone books.

NYNEX Information Resources Company is a world-class leader in directory publishing and database management, helping buyers and sellers throughout the world manage information to complete transactions. NYNEX also publishes directories in Gibraltar, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic and is the creator of BigYellow(sm), the country's first and most comprehensive national online Yellow Pages service on the Internet's World Wide Web.

NYNEX is a global communications and media company that provides a full range of services in the northeastern United States and high-growth markets around the world, including the United Kingdom, Thailand, Gibraltar, Greece, Indonesia, the Philippines, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

The Corporation is a leader in the telecommunications, wireless communications, cable television, directory publishing and entertainment and information services.

FAX copies of recent NYNEX news releases are available free of charge, 24 hours a day. Call 1-800-331-1214 and an automated system will provide instructions.

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