Schools : Education news : FOUNTAIN VALLEY : Recycled Book Covers Due in January

To encourage middle school students to reduce what they throw away, the city is launching a program to give them 10,000 book covers--printed on recycled paper, of course.

The City Council on Tuesday approved the program, through which book covers will be distributed to Fountain Valley and Huntington Beach middle school students in January.

Susan Lynn, manager of environmental programs, said the city will receive funding from the League of California Cities and the California Integrated Waste Management Board to pay for the program’s $2,800 cost.

The Fountain Valley Women’s Club will help out by counting and bundling the book covers, Lynn said. Any surplus covers will be given to local libraries.

The covers will have waste reduction messages, such as “A reusable lunch bag is my rule!”

The program, Lynn said, is the first joint effort between Fountain Valley and Huntington Beach to educate middle school students about recycling. Since 1991, however, the two cities have collaborated on a number of outreach projects to promote reusing and recycling.

“We want to teach kids new ways of consumption--that they don’t have to consume as much or throw away as much. The idea here is to promote a behavioral and lifestyle change.”