Shanghai will launch a pilot textbook recycling scheme in secondary schools from this fall semester to reduce textbook paper consumption, the Shanghai Education Commission revealed yesterday.

The first batch of textbooks to be recycled or reused will be middle school music material. Books on other subjects such as art, physical education and even major subjects like Chinese, math and English, will be included gradually.

The schools taking part in the program will have to purchase new textbooks about every five years and distribute them for students' use during class sessions. But the books will have to be collected and kept on campus after class, rather than allowing students to take them back home, so that they could be passed on to the next batch of students.

Xu Dianfang, vice director of the commission's curriculum and teaching material reform division, said that the textbook recycling was part of local schools' campaign to protect the environment.

Possessing one's own brand-new textbooks has been a routine for local elementary school students for decades. The practice, however, leads to huge paper consumption, officials said.

For instance, there are nearly 2 million elementary school students in the city, with an estimated 4,000 tons of paper needed each year. Had these books been reused for five years, more than 80,000 trees could have been saved.

The eco-friendly trial, however, encountered unexpected skepticism from parents.

"The biggest question mark lingering in my mind is whether these books are hygienic," said Liu Yufei, mother of a 10-year-old schoolboy. "We don't care about paying 10 yuan (US$1.25) or even more to have a new book. But children's health matters the most."

Xu said the commission would also team up with schools to sterilize such books on a regular basis. 

(Shanghai Daily August 21, 2006)