The room between Lompoc High School's textbook room and the library's offices is a flurry of activity on Fridays during seventh period, as students wade through a week's worth of recyclables.

Wearing clear plastic gloves, the students from the California Scholarship Federation (CSF) or the Drama Club (they alternate weeks) sift through blue bins separating the plastic and aluminum containers. All lids are removed and thrown away, and any remaining contents are poured out.

The separated items are bundled into large black garbage bags before being hauled out to drama teacher Sarah Barthel's pickup truck. Later Barthel takes the bundles to the Drive-In Recycling center. They usually earn about $80 a week, according to Barthel.

The money earned from this endeavor is placed into a special fund to buy books for the school library - books students choose.

This is the Recycle to Read program. It was started about three years ago and, in the words of librarian Mary Birch, was “the brain child of Bea Reynolds.”

Reynolds, who also works in the library, said she got the idea after Birch had collected trash that students left outside the library doors and set it up as a display for students to see.

“I saw all the recyclable stuff and decided to do something about it,” Reynolds explained. This is where counselor Virginia King entered the picture.

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Knowing King is the advisor for CSF, a service-oriented club, Reynolds brought King the idea of having students with a free seventh period collect recycling bins that would be placed in classrooms. Many of the CSF students responded.

Reynolds contacted the city of Lompoc, which provided the blue recycling bins. Then all they needed were teachers willing to have a bin in their classroom. Though they started slowly, this year about 70 teachers have recycling bins in their rooms.

Though originally participants were mainly from CSF, eventually the drama club got involved too. Some students not involved in either group also volunteer their time as a way to do community service.

Birch has even enlisted the help of her fifth period student teaching assistants to scour the campus for recyclables that have been thrown into the wrong bins or tossed aside during lunch.

Volunteers are also solicited during morning announcements.

“Our hope is that students will begin to see their roll in recycling,” Birch said.

In addition to raising awareness about the environment, an equally important aspect of this project was to generate interest in reading.

A bulletin board just inside the east side library doors is the “Recycle to Read” board. Along with interesting facts about recycling and a fund-raising “thermometer” showing how much money has been raised so far, there is a sheet of paper where any student may recommend a book for the library to purchase.

Students can, and have, recommended books, graphic novels, plays and poetry.

One student, Souania Moua, got involved because she wanted the library to have more plays and musicals.

For another student, Kayla Hadley, it was the other way around.

“I read a really good book and noticed it had a ‘Recycle to Read' sticker in it,” Hadley said. “It made me want to participate.”

Each book purchased with funds from the “Recycle to Read” program gets a sticker saying so. This serves to show the students what their efforts have accomplished and, as in Hadley's case, to spark ideas and action.

The program's longest volunteer is Elizabeth Grill. Grill has been participating for all three years.

“It's something great for the library and the environment,” Grill explained.

Amanda Brooks can be reached at 737-1056 or abrooks@lompocrecord.com.

January 21, 2008