Photo taken by Justin Knight.
DIVINITY SCHOOL’S ROCKEFELLER HALL renovates to LEED Gold Standard! Gorgeous marble refuse stations designate recyclables, compost and trash. The renovation included the replacement of a one-acre, 150 space asphalt parking lot with a beautiful green, trees, and Laura Lamp’s stone labyrinth.
Amazing photos of a Red-Tailed hawk bathing in the Busch Hall courtyard fountain. Special thanks to Sandy Selesky for these spectacular photos!
At Harvard Surplus Distribution Center as of 11-4-08:
MANY MORE ITEMS!
Photo taken by Adam Mitchell, Save That Stuff
HARVARD RECYCLING TRUCK V-11 dumps at the FCR recycling plant. In better times, recyclables are processed and shipped out long before the pile spreads into the parking lot
KUDOS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO HARVARD HILLEL, which expanded its existing program to full-spectrum SingleStream recycling. Hillel administrators Gabi Soble and Michael Simon enthusiastically promoted the program to their Hillel colleagues and throughout their extensive catering operation. Special credit for making this all happen goes to Jonathan Steinman '10, Winthrop House's REP, who energetically promoted recycling and pulled all the necessary players together.
The HARVARD SMITHSONIAN CENTER for ASTROPHYSICS expanded its recycling program on September 29. The new SingleStream system enables members of the CfA community to recycle papers, cardboard, bottles and cans in the same bin. They can even recycle all those tennis ball cans they are famous for! Kudos to Director Charles Alcock, Superintendent of Facilities Charlie Hickey, Gosia Sklodowska and Dara Olmsted of the Green Campus Initiative, and last but not least, graduate students Eliza Miller-Ricci & Laura Blecha.
OFFICE OF CAREER SERVICES hosted their annual Career Forum at Gordon Track and Field House, where thousands of undergrads came to visit prospective employers. Extensive preparations paid off with huge volumes of recyclables, including 50 bags of recyclables and 5 cubic yards of cardboard. Even better, the OCS discouraged employers from bringing paperwork which students have not historically been interested in picking up, like annual reports which can be read online. Thoughtful distribution of abundant recycling containers helped squelch the trash. Congratulations to Robin Mount, Louise Scanes, and Deb Carroll for making this year's Forum the greenest yet! All occupants of their HQ at 54 Dunster Street also now use washable mugs, cleaned by an assortment of dishwashing soaps to keep them clean!
HARVARD CRIMSON on 9-16-08 reports on SingleStream recycling: Link
Also in the Crimson on 10-1-08, a report on FMO LANDSCAPE SERVICES YARD COMPOST PROJECT, which uses compost derived partly from food scraps picked up from Harvard's campus by FMO Recycling and Waste Services. Link
HELP SAVE LITTLE CLAY'S FUTURE by recycling! See Clay generate recyclables and compost instead of trash for the incinerator. "Stop Trashing the Climate" campaign claims that recycling and waste reduction would reduce carbon equal to shutting down 21% of the nation's coal-fired power plants. Link
Improve your quality of life by being more thrifty with MORE FUN, LESS STUFF! See this great link on "Living Well Below Your Means:" Link
Called by some THE GREENEST MUSEUM IN THE WORLD, the California Academy of Sciences opened last month in San Francisco. The building is insulated with recycled blue jeans and uses 1.8 milliion plants on its 2.5 acre roof to hold rainwater. Link
RESOURCEFUL MONKS in Thailand build a temple complex out of beer bottles and mortar! Link
"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!
Photo courtesy of Jason Benjamin
President Drew Faust's Sustainability Celebration COMPOSTS OR RECYCLES NEARLY EVERYTHING!
Alum Al Gore applauded President Faust's ambitious goal to cut the University's direct greenhouse gas emissions by 30% of 2006 levels by 2016. Consistent with President Faust's message to "confront the challenge of climate change and to contribute to the sustainability of our planet," Harvard Recycling and many helpers recovered 10 cubic yards, 98% of the event's refuse, for composting or recycling. A paltry half-bag of trash (mostly from coffee cups carried in from shops in Harvard Square) was all we got after the estimated crowd of at least 8,000 had eaten harvest snacks, drunk hot chocolate and cider, and opened their gift boxes of aluminum water bottles. (Left: Photo taken by Kris Snibbe, Harvard News Office. )
DARA OLMSTED and PHILIP KREYCIK of the Sustainability Office contributed greatly to this success by drumming up 40 volunteers (named below).Clad in "Ask me how to compost!" T-shirts, the green consultants staffed 20 composting stations and steered the biodegradable serviceware into the "Compost" bins and the few newspapers, soda cans and water bottles into "Recycling." Al Gore, clearly awed by the turnout on the raw, damp day, delivered a speech that raised a thundering ovation from the throng in Tercentenary Theater.
Sobering but inspiring, Mr. Gore said that we at Harvard have everything we need to lead higher education and the nation towards renewable energy and away from the increasingly damaging use of a carbon-based energy supply. See slides below and click on "Green Commitment" to hear 1:58 of President Faust's stirring introduction:
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/multimedia/slides.html
Read the text of President Faust's speech here »
THANKS TO COMPOST VOLUNTEERS from the ARNOLD ARBORETUM: Abby Hird and Jennifer Leigh; from the BUSINESS SCHOOL: Barbara Cleary, Kara Frigon, Katie Giddings, Carol Healey and Erika McCaffrey; from the CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION Tsai Pei-Hsuan and Jessica Parks; from the DIVINITY SCHOOL: Leslie Macpherson; from the FACULTY OF ARTS & SCIENCES: Celeste Beck, Wendy Duan, Emily Eames, Louise Scanes, Stephanie Zabel, FAS STUDENTS: Alison Denton Jones, Kristian Bergen, Emily Boehm, Jill Bunting, Nicole Follmer, Nico Hawley-Weld, Rebekah Kharrazi, Carolyn Medina, Bronwen O'Herin, Bess Rosen, Leah Schwartz, Jocelyn Sedlet and Serena Zhao; from the GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION: Laura Arena and Kimberly McMahon; from the HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT: Jake Ackman, Jenni Alden, Katie Beane, Brandan Daly, Neal Doyle, Dave Fishman, Stephanie Hamel, Kate Hoagland, Henry Kesner, Katherine Lincicum, Maureen Mahoney, Sam Milton, Michael Shively, and last but not least Vidya Sivan; from the LAW SCHOOL: Students Nigel Barrella, Dipika Jain, and Dami Olawuyi; from the SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Alum Julia Africa. THANK YOU for making the Sustainability Celebration a Zero Waste event!
SUSTAINABILITY OFFICE lists 10 ways individuals can help achieve President Faust's ambitious goal. We especially like #10!
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2008/10.30/11-10things.html
DIVINITY SCHOOL COMPOSTS and recycles nearly everything! HDS is the first Harvard faculty to make both recycling and composting available in every building and at every event during Orientation Week. Stunning newly-renovated Rockefeller Hall celebrated their re-opening 10-28-08 (see photo), showing off their gorgeous three-holer recycling, compost and trash stations. Congratulations to Executive Dean Julie Bisbee, Director of Operations Ralph DeFlorio, Facilities Manager Roy Lauridsen, Property Operations Assistant Paul Corbett, Facilities Maintenance Operations Custodial Supervisor Jyoti Rana, Sustainability Office Manager Jesse Foote, Sustainability Office Greening Coordinator Dara Olmsted, the HDS GreenTeam and many others for making this possible.
KENNEDY SCHOOL HOSTS ZERO WASTE LUNCH and dinner thanks to Gina Venturini, Vidya Sivan and Jayne Rufo of Sodexho's HKS Forum Cafe; Dara Olmsted and Andrea Ruedy of the Green Campus Initiative also ran a Zero Waste Barbecue at UOS's Blackstone Courtyard. In addition, the Divinity School (thanks Roy Lauridsen and Jyoti Rana (and Dara also), FAS Physics (thanks Philip Kreycik and Phil Alvarado), FAS Chemistry and Chemical Biology (thanks Helen Schwickrath), Harvard Herbaria (thanks and Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (thanks Katie Parodi) have also hosted Zero Waste events recently. Call us if you'd like your next catered affair to be waste free. Read more about the HKS lunch barbecue this summer where all refuse was prevented, recycled or composted.
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2008/07.24/00-hkswaste.html
Not to be outdone, the Graduate School of Education also composts! Thanks to Colleen Carter, the staff of Tables of Content, Jason Carlson, Dara Olmsted of the Office for Sustainability and the HGSE Green Team, the Ed School recovered everything for recycling or composting from their kick-off events!
See "Justice" Professor Michael Sandel-- one of the most popular professors in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences-- promote recycling to an ossified Sanders Theater neighbor! The other slides of Harvard superstars promoting sustainable actions at the Flickr site are also wonderful. Thanks to Gosia Sklodowska, Brandon Geller, Dara Olmsted, Camille, and Philip Kreycik of the Harvard Sustainability Office for producing and sharing!
http://flickr.com/photos/greencampus/sets/72157608274896227/show/with/2963826275/
PRICES FOR RECYCLED COMMODITIES CRASH with the sharp slow-down of the industrial economy last month. Prices for old corrugated cardboard boxes, news, glass, metal and plastic have dropped below zero in many regions; in other words, you need to pay to get rid of it. For proof that Harvard's recyclables are getting hard to market, see the photo (on web address) of our truck dumping in the middle of the FCR yard. In better economies, FCR is eager to process, bale up and ship out to market everything and nothing protrudes from the warehouse walls. Nothing we generate on campus costs us more than our $87 per ton trash disposal fee, but everything we generate is less desirable. The stronger US dollar of late also makes our recyclables more expensive on the international market. Our solution? Keep on recycling! We have survived the market drops of 1975 and 1995. Besides, the more we recycle, the more strongly we convince manufacturing industries that the supply of post consumer materials is steady and building industries that rely on post-consumer materials is a wise investment. Read more about the commodities price drop here:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1129419
COMMUTERCHOICE CELEBRATES WALKERS and so do we! Visitors to the "Fall Walk-to-Work Breakfast" for Harvard affiliates on Thursday 10-16-08 received gorgeous reusable china mugs to help make that hot morning coffee a more sustainable drink!
Read the latest issue of Vita Viridis, produced by Herbaria staff. "Food" is the theme. Editor Stephanie Zabel and her colleagues describe the fun, work, insights and lessons learned while growing a vegetable garden this summer.
http://www.huh.harvard.edu/vita1-5.pdf
Win a "FILTER FOR GOOD" grant from Brita and Nalgene! Five $10,000 grants will be awarded to college students designing the best promotions for the "FilterForGood" campaign. This works to encourage consumers to kick the bottled water habit and switch to a reusable bottle filled with filtered tap water. Of course, all Cambridge and Boston water is of such superb quality that filtering is totally unnecessary. But for those who drink from less pristine municipal water systems, filtering is the way to go. Read about the College FilterForGood Eco-Challenge Grants here:
http://www.filterforgood.com/
Wal-Mart sets green standards for suppliers in China. 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. 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 Adam Blanchette, Lydia Carmosino, Lori Kuzma, Sandy Selesky and Jeremiah Trimble!
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
