Welcome to the Daily Halacha. We know that a person has to put Divrei Torah (words of Torah) written on a piece of paper, or printed Divrei Torah, in geniza. A person has to put them in a special box in his house where he keeps all the Torah papers, and eventually you have to give them to a person who takes care of them, and then he gives them a proper burial. No Divrei Torah papers can be thrown in the garbage.
But here comes a question that somebody sent in. Let’s say I have a piece of paper on which I write the names of people who need prayers, people who are not well. So you write their names on the paper, take it with you, and put it in your siddur (prayer book) because you’re praying for them in the Amidah (standing prayer), in the Shemoneh Esrei (Eighteen Benedictions). After a while, you want to throw out that piece of paper. Should I put this piece of paper in geniza, or can I throw it in the regular garbage?
So, Chacham Ovadia Yosef says that a paper on which you wrote names of people to pray for does not need geniza. As long as you did not write Divrei Torah on it, it doesn’t need geniza. But even though you used it to mention the names in prayer, which is a very beautiful mitzvah (commandment), the actual paper with the names of the people who need prayers does not need geniza, and you can put it in a regular garbage.