On Saturday, 4-26-08 from 10 AM - 3 PM. Join the Environmental Action Committee, OEBUG, Harvard Democrats, Harvard Republicans, the Resource Efficiency Program and many other groups as they show how green they are! Games, fun and food for all on the MAC Quad, 51 Holyoke Street, Cambridge.
Available off campus: New-condition high density files available! Make seller an offer. If interested, please let us know and we'll send you some photos and contact information. Located in Somerville, MA. The track is 19 feet and includes:
(7) large six-shelf units measuring 139W x 84 1/2H x 26D
(1) smaller six-shelf unit measuring 34W x 84 1/2H x 26D
High quality WOODEN DORMITORY FURNITURE available to non-profit group. Beds, mattresses, tables.
Much, much more available!
At the Wu-Tang Clan concert Friday, 4-18-08. Look for dozens of ClearStreams offering undergraduates the chance to recycle as they party.
Hear the NPR story that describes the Zero Waste movement, the effort to prevent the generation of all trash. Should Harvard declare a goal of zero waste? Please let us know what you think here.
Starting this July, Harvard Recycling will offer new recycling specifications which will allow mixing of all paper, bottles, cans and cardboard. We have graphics-rich files of signs and posters about SingleStream Recycling suitable for printing and posting. Please email us if you'd like these files. We will also be distributing printed copies of these signs with adhesive backing in June.
Do you have CONFIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS with student or staff medical records, social security numbers or financial information that needs to be kept private? Please secure and recycle them! DataShredder is the University's Preferred Vendor for confidential data destruction. They securely shred all documents they pick up, then recycle the fibers. Save money and cut pollution by teaming up with the vendor that's already got a truck on campus, today and every day! Call or email Scott Hovan, 1-800-622-1808 sh@datashredder.net.
Erase it first! On most models, letting the battery discharge fully will do it. Be sure also to remove phone SIM cards if possible. If you cut it up you can recycle the pieces too. See instructions on how to do a manual erase here.
See the second issue of Steph Zabel's fabulous and beautiful "Vita Viridis" about GREENING EFFORTS IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY HERBARIA. In this issue Carolyn Beans has a particularly insightful article about her week of no waste. Click here to read the article.
We now use a Harvard Computer Society list to facilitate sending out our "Recycling Update." If you're not reading this copy of the Update on your own email address and you did before, you may have fallen off the mailing list when we made the switch. Please let us know and we'd be glad to add you to the current list.
"The profit motive is like the ring in the bull's nose which doesn't take much effort to pull into a new direction. It is now our duty as citizens to take hold of that ring by re-writing the rules of how profit can be made so that the cleanest companies on earth win."
~Eric Lombardi, Executive Director, Eco-Cycle, 2002
Thanks for reducing, reusing and recycling!
Photo of Blackstone taken by Jason Benjamin
HARVARD LEADS THE IVY LEAGUE (and ranks #3 in the nation) in tons recycled in the 2008 RecycleMania contest. With only one week to go, we are #2 in the Ivies in Per Capita Recycling, Food Service Organics and our favorite, Waste Minimization. Please help us finish strong, and perhaps catch Princeton in Per Capita Recycling, by recycling all your paper, cardboard, bottles & cans. See all the results here.
RADCLIFFE INSTITUTE, Harvard's #1 Recycling faculty with a 70% recycling rate, shows why with an OFFICE SUPPLIES GIVE-AWAY, Wednesday 4-2-08 in Room 100, Fay House, 10 Garden Street from 9 - 12 noon. Everything is free to all on a first-come, first-served basis. Bring a reusable shopping bag and save Harvard (or yourself) some money!
Belva's Caf=E9 in Divinity Hall joins the Graduate School of Design's Chauhaus as the second retail dining site on campus to dispense all its food on compostable serviceware which is collected for composting. Congratulations to Ralph DeFlorio , Cathleen Hoelscher and Roy Lauridsen of Harvard Divinity School; Jyoti Rana of Facilities Maintenance Operations; Andy Allen, David Davidson, Christa Martin, and Theresa McCulla of Harvard Dining Services; and Dara Olmsted ("Compost Queen") of the Green Campus Initiative, who all contributed to this pioneering effort. If the trial works out well, composting will be rolled out in the new ultra-green Rockefeller Hall, which opens this fall.
The home of UOS, 46 Blackstone Street, also rolled out composting in March. Snappy green Busch KC2000 compost buckets with daisy-shaped charcoal filters collect all food scraps, napkins and teabags in six kitchenettes. See the unit here. Our custodian Edison Melgar checks every kitchenette bin daily, dumps it weekly or more often, and sanitizes it weekly. The organics are stored in a locked 64-gallon rolling barrel for weekly pickup by our compost vendor, who takes it to a commercial compost site in Saugus. This effort will divert an estimated 5,000 kg of organics from disposal annually, preventing the release of 1,500 kg of CO2 equivalents. Thanks to Dara Olmsted, Lara Adams, Jason Luke, Carlos Vielmann, Emily Martin, and last but not least, Edison Melgar!
We don't want to steal their thunder, but we hear that equally exciting composting developments are going to be announced at the SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH later this month. In addition, the BUSINESS SCHOOL has pledged to serve a "Zero Waste Luncheon" at their 100th anniversary next week.
Thanks to Krystal Noiseaux of the Graduate Green Living program of the Green Campus Initiative for passing this along: The Kennedy School Student Government "voted this week to HALT FUNDING FOR BOTTLED WATER at events funded by student activity fees. Instead of filling requests for bottled water, Sodexho will provide pitchers of ice water at student group events receiving funding from KSSG. The measure, which passed by a 21-4 vote, will stretch valuable student activity dollars and eliminate waste." Thanks for drinking clean, cheap, well-monitored Cambridge municipal water from a reusable pitcher and glasses!
Efficient as they are, contain an average of 5 mg of mercury. We need to recover these CFL's for recycling when they burn out. In order to reduce the likelihood that they will get broken and release mercury in transit, we have worked with the Institution Recycling Network to develop bubble-baggies with adhesive flaps. Contact us if you'd like a sample. We can give them to any building using Harvard Recycling Services. Many buildings like to collect the lamps in the white "Batteries Plus" buckets set out in many locations. Please ask us if you'd like a sign to post on your "Batteries Plus" bucket, where we can now receive batteries, CFL's, cell phones, inkjets, CD's and DVD's. We also have flyers on how to clean up in the event of a CFL breakage, thanks to the stunning efforts of Philip Kreycik of the Green Campus Initiative. In a word, sweep (don't vacuum), then bag it up tightly. Email us for a sample poster.
The US Forestry Service has published a cost-benefit analysis for urban trees. See the analysis here.
Investment Advice (thanks to Josh Girard): "If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00. With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the original $1000.00. With WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00 left. If you had purchased $1000 of Delta Air Lines stock you would have $49.00 left. But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.00. Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle. It's called the 401-Keg Plan."
Here's a report from "Sustainable Business" showing the substantial contribution recycling now makes in the US economy: "In less than 40 years, the U.S. recycling industry has become a backbone of our economy. In 1968, the fledgling industry pulled in $4.6 billion in annual sales; today, revenues are roughly $236 billion [National Recycling Coalition]. The industry provides employment for 1.1 million people, up from just 79,000 in the late 1960s, and 56,000 public and private facilities processing recyclables. Our research partners Cannacord Adams estimate the industry accounts for about 2% of the $12.36 trillion U.S. gross domestic product as of last year. The recycling industry generates more than twice the revenue than the $100 billion waste management industry [National Solid Wastes Management Association] even though much more garbage is thrown out than is recycled. That's because recycled materials generate economic value -- waste disposal doesn't." Read more here...
SURPLUS FURNITURE and other items are available at our Recycling and Surplus Center in Allston every Thursday 11-2! If donating furniture, please instruct your movers to contact us 24 hours before delivery rob_gogan@harvard.edu so that we can receive and display everything safely. We can take material only from Harvard buildings which use our waste and recycling services, and we can never receive any trash or hazardous waste.
When donating file cabinets and desks, please unlock, open up and clean out all drawers. We cannot receive any furniture with unknown contents. Likewise, please make sure all computers, smart phones and other electronic devices are purged of any confidential information. Harvard recycling does not shred or otherwise destroy any confidential materials we pick up or that are delivered to the recycling and surplus center. Thus it is the responsibility of the donor or recycler to make proper arrangements to protect confidential information. Please call us if you need extra recycling barrels or more pickups when cleaning out offices and furniture. Also, please ask us for contact information for confidential destruction vendors serving the campus.
Please keep in mind that parking space limitations force us to be STRICT ABOUT PARKING RULES. Please respect our neighbors' need to maintain safe traffic flow around the Recycling and Surplus Center. When here for Thursday's Surplus Distribution, follow the parking monitor's direction and park only in designated areas. You may also park in the free spaces in the streets adjacent to the property. If you are interested in seeing any of the items now available, come to our Recycling and Surplus Center at 175 North Harvard Street in Allston any Thursday from 11 to 2 PM. Here is a street map showing our location. Everything is free, first-come, first-served and open to everyone.
For information concerning Recycling and Solid Waste Removal, contact Rob Gogan, Supervisor of Recycling and Solid Waste Removal at 617-495-3042, or email rob_gogan at harvard dot edu
