Old Phone Books Never Die

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 (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.