Paper textbooks are still widely used in local schools, consuming a large amount of resources and having an enormous impact on the environment. The government should encourage the use of second-hand textbooks , monitor the textbook recycling programmes in local schools and finance school libraries to loan textbooks to schoolchildren. In 2019, over HK$846 million (US$109 million) was spent on the School Textbook Assistance Scheme, of which 30 to 60 per cent was for textbooks and the rest for school-related expenses. To encourage more parents to buy used textbooks, the government should cut its subsidies for textbooks and instead issue cash vouchers for students to join after-school programmes. With less government funding to boost the demand for new textbooks, publishers will also think twice before raising prices . To promote used textbooks, the Education Bureau conducts seminars, school visits and issues circular memorandums to schools annually, urging them to launch various kinds of textbook recycling programmes. Yet, the bureau does not have information about how many schools have organised such programmes. To provide more incentives, the bureau should collect and publish data about textbook recycling programmes in local schools and reward the schools with more participants and a larger number of recycled books. ESF Sha Tin College has implemented an innovative textbook recycling scheme. Instead of buying new textbooks each year, students in this international school borrow textbooks from the school which they then return at the end of the school year. Once the textbooks are out of date for the syllabus, they are donated to Crossroads Foundation or other interested charities. The Education Bureau should introduce a pilot funding scheme for local school libraries to purchase textbooks that can be reused across student cohorts. This scheme can help save the environment by reducing the number of textbooks needed as well as promote extensive reading among students who will become less reliant on textbooks for their academic studies. Keyu Liao and Kexin Liu, Kowloon Tong