NEW RECORD FOR BASICS: This May, Harvard's recycled papers, bottles, cans and cardboard made up 25% of our overall refuse. This is the highest proportion we have ever recorded, exceeding September's 23% mark. This means that we did our BEST JOB EVER at separating the basics for recycling. Thanks to all of you! The rest of our recycling was "back of the house" operations, primarily recovery of organics for composting, but also including scrap metal, wooden pallets, and computers.
NEW RECORD FOR RECYCLING: Preliminary results from FY2008 indicate that we recovered 7,800 tons for recycling or composting. This is a 5% increase over FY2007. Way to go, Harvard recyclers!
We can send you via inter-office mail any number of posters (8 1/2 x 11), bumper stickers (3 x 13) or square labels (5 x 5) to any Harvard building we serve. We also have labels for trash, compost, and universal waste. Please email us if you want some!
A small girl's Catholic high school is hoping to open a school store. Organizers need a display case to show spirit wear clothing. If you have such a case to donate, please email us and we will put you in touch.
MARK THE DATES! Harvard Habitat for Humanity Stuff Sales of student furniture and supplies will be at the Science Center Lawn on the dates below.
Shoppers who just can’t wait for the Stuff Sales can make special arrangements with Harvard Habitat for Humanity to check out the thousands of pieces of furniture, rugs, chairs, school supplies and books. Please email Captain Irina Perjar to set up a “sneak peek” visit! iperjar at harvard dot edu.
All sales support HHH's mission to provide housing for the needy:
Sat & Sun Aug 23-24 9 AM – 3 PM
Sat & Sun Aug 30-31 9 AM – 3 PM
Sat – Wed Sept 6-10 9 AM—3 PM
Sat & Sun Sept 13-14 9 AM—3 PM
ARE YOU RECYCLING ALL YOUR PAPERS? See this comprehensive list of papers that can be recycled. Thanks to the "Mass Recycles Paper" campaign!
What type of paper can Harvard recycle?
Ways Harvard Can Reduce Paper Use:
"If it can't be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned or removed from production."
~Ecology Center, Berkeley
Thanks for reducing, reusing and recycling!
The Crossroads in Harvard Square
Harvard Dining Services RECYCLES AT ALL COMMENCEMENT WEEK EVENTS, totaling close to 300,000 meals. This stunning effort helped drive our June recycling tonnage up by 26 tons over June 2007. Thanks to Crimson Catering Director Madeline Meehan, Adams House Kitchen Manager Dave Seley, and a host of box-flatteners, bottle and can bag stuffers, and Recycling Sign posters! Admiring photos of the recycle-friendly event were posted on the Facebook page of ultra-green double alum Alison Rogers, a 2003 graduate of the College and 2008 M. Ed. Graduate of the Ed School. Thank you HUDS!
Harvard Kennedy School hosts ZERO WASTE BARBECUE July 9th for 500 faculty and staff this week! HKS Facilities phenomenon Gina Venturini worked closely with Jayne Raffo and her Sodexho staff, Dara Olmsted of the Green Campus Initiative, HKS Program Coordinator Vidya Sivan, and Harvard Recycling to serve a delightful outdoor repast almost completely waste-free! Plates, cups and serviceware were all compostable, and bottles and cans were recyclable. Gina cleverly sabotaged would-be wasters by removing all the litter barrels and placing abundant “Compost” and “Recycling” receptacles throughout the Courtyard. The only glitch was that the ice cream bar wrappers were not compostable, though the supplier had promised Dara that they would come only in boxes without petro-plastic wrappers, forcing Dara and the other diligent organizers to dive into the receptacles to prevent them from spoiling the compost. The compostables were impressively well-sorted; the only contaminant found by the vendor, Save That Stuff, was a single aluminum can. All told, there were less than 14 gallons of wrappers that had to be discarded as trash, while there were 400 gallons of compostables and nearly 300 gallons of recyclables recovered. If you would like to replicate this outstanding result on your corner of our fair campus, please call Harvard Recycling and we will make arrangements to lend you some of the ClearStream recycling frames which we think work extremely well to recover recyclables, compostables and residual trash in most outdoor venues.
Since May 1, 2008, it is especially important that all Massachusetts businesses and institutions RECYCLE ALL FLUORESCENT LAMPS, THERMOSTATS, AND MERCURY-CONTAINING BATTERIES. The Mercury Management Act of 2006 (an amendment of Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 21H) puts new teeth into the law. Harvard Recycling can help you meet all requirements of this new law with pickups, “Universal Waste” labels, bags, buckets and boxes. Read more on Mass DEP’s website at http://www.mass.gov/dep/.
Cambridge Recycling announces a new partnership with Whole Foods that will enable visitors to DELIVER FOOD WASTE TO THE 115 PROSPECT STREET STORE. They are now accepting food waste from customers everyday from 8am-10pm. The toters for organics are located in the rear of the parking lot on the left side. Be sure to thank them for offering this valuable service to our community!
CUT PAPER USE AND FILE STORAGE TO ZERO with improved security and access to your documents! EFACT, a primary sponsor of the "Tools for a Greener Office" conference at UMass-Boston last month, uses a quick scanner and efile archive system. In theory, this prevents the need to print anything! Read more here:
http://www.efactusa.com/index.html
Kudos to Harvard's preferred office products vendor, Office Max, for maintaining the same price for recycled copy paper as virgin fiber despite the need to raise prices. All papers are increasing in price due to high prices for energy and fiber. Office Max will keep prices for both recycled and virgin well below $30 per case. Please help Office Max keep their innovative REUSABLE SHIPPING BOX initiative going by returning the empty plastic boxes to the driver at the next delivery!
Cambridge is the BEST WALKING CITY IN AMERICA! Mayor Denise Simmons has asked us to celebrate the City's recent Best Walking City Award from Prevention Magazine. Wear green and go green by walking, biking, or skating on Friday, July 25th and the last Friday of every month! For details, see below:
www.GoGreenStreets.org
GREENER PIPET TIP REFILLS come to Harvard's labs! Many are frustrated that single-use pipet tip boxes must be discarded after only one use, generating lots of packaging waste. Now, VWR Stockrooms in Harvard labs are offering pipet tip refills with many carbon-cutting features like bio-plastic resins and recycled content packaging. Learn more about ways to green up your labs at the link to the Green Campus Initiative site below. Thanks to Ray Wise, Strategic Procurement Manager, for passing this along!
http://www.greencampus.harvard.edu/labs/labequipment.php
GREENER INK FROM HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS: Harvard University Press is teaming up with Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group and Amerikal Products Corporation, two of the printing industry’s most progressive and entrepreneurial companies, as part of a groundbreaking initiative creating a new sustainable process that will reduce release of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) and eliminate of natural-gas-fed ovens required in traditional printing operations. Read more here:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/journalists/HarvardGreenPR.pdf
Learn about Harvard's online campus classifieds! Buy, sell or donate surplus reusables within your own corner of the Harvard campus! One resource open to all Harvardians: the HARVie list here: www.harvie.harvard.edu/harvieslist/jsp/index.jsp
Read more here:
http://harvie.harvard.edu/working/resource/gettingthemost/
WASTE LESS AND PREVENT GHG'S! A new report, "Stop Trashing the Climate," provides evidence that preventing waste and expanding reuse, recycling, and composting programs -- that is, aiming for zero waste -- is one of the fastest, cheapest, and most effective strategies available for combating climate change. If we recycled or composted all we could, we could quickly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an amount equal to the emissions of 87 coal-fired power plants (1/5 of the nation's 417 plants). Read more here:
http://www.stoptrashingtheclimate.org/
PHILADELPHIA CELEBRATES "BINDEPENDENCE DAY" and kicks off City-wide SingleStream recycling on July 4th! Philly has increased recycling by 35% in the neighborhoods piloting SingleStream recycling. Read more here:
http://www.wastenews.com/email.html?id=1215529907
MSNBC ran a story this week on the booming demand for US recyclables in China from the perspective of a Chicago recyclables processor. Read how the world demand for commodities is raising prices for post-consumer fiber, metal and plastic:
RECYCLE MERCURY LAMPS AT ALL HOME DEPOTS! The big box store announced it will offer free CFL recycling at each of its 1,973 locations. Read more here:
Check out this model of Big Ben made from recycled Coke cans!
How did water become a solid waste problem? Read about how we were sold on buying bottled water in "BOTTLEMANIA:
How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It," by Elizabeth Royte.
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. A street map showing our location is here: Everything is free, first-come, first-served and open to everyone.
This summer we are receiving a steady stream of office furniture and supplies, as well as some residential furniture. We will resume regular inventories with our August issue.
Thanks to Campus Nature Watchers Rob Farrow, Sonia Ketchian, Krystal Noiseaux & Jonathan Poulin!
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
