What do landfills and telephone books have in common?

Not much, since the University of Arizona is working in conjunction with US West Communications to recycle old telephone books.

"The program was started to reduce the amount of garbage dumped into landfills," said Jason Miller, staff member at the Student Recycling Center.

The UA/US West partnership produced the ninth annual city telephone directory collection and recycling program. This event also occurs throughout Tucson from Aug. 6 through Sept. 6.

Recycling bins will be strategically placed in all UA buildings. Custodians will collect the directories from those bins and transport them to large cardboard bins. The books will then be picked up by US West.

US West supplies the cardboard bins and the transportation to ship the old directories to a recycled paper mill in Port Townsend, Wash. The old books will made into new telephone books.

Over 13,000 telephone books were collected last year, and about the same is expected to be collected this year, Miller said.

Old directories can also be recycled at any Tucson area ABCO Markets Inc. supermarket.