UOS | Facilities Maintenance Operations | Recycling

Introducing Energy at FAS

Get involved in helping FAS identify and fix inefficiencies across our campus. Tell us whenever you notice anything wasteful or have a vision (big or small) for a more sustainable campus! Energy@fas is forwarded to FAS Physical Resources and the FAS Green Program to address your ideas and solutions! Contact energy@fas

Green Office Certification Program

Office for Sustainability announces Green Office Certification Program! See how you can color your department deep green. Let us know how we can help! OFS is available to get you all four leaves of their clover. Sustainable suggestions are grouped into the categories of Energy, Events, Kitchen, Publications, Purchasing, Recycling [hooray!], Transportation, Waste Reduction [yesss...], and Participation. Click here to visit the Green Office website

Harvard Athletics Recycles

Harvard Athletics Recycles in the Stadium for all home games of the Boston Breakers professional soccer team. Furthermore, Athletics is also providing recycling at all home games of the Boston Cannons professional lacrosse team.

Kestrel Educational Adventures

Help an alum from HGSE introduce children to the wonders of nature. After all, if the next generation doesn't experience the glories and delights outside, they will not protect it. Read this message from the Director, Jessica Kagle: "Our mission is: Inspiring the protection of local natural habitats and a love for nature in young people through creative and playful environmental education. Our website is www.kestreleducation.org

WINE BOTTLES LOSE THEIR DIMPLES as bases flatten to provide lighter-weight bottles. Read more about beverage container light-weighting in this NYT article.

WINE MAKERS SWITCH TO BAGS-IN-BOXES and cut carbon by 60%! Read more here.

"There is no ark without a Noah." Thomas L. Friedman, "Hot, Flat & Crowded," 2008

April 2009 - View Archive

April Harvard Recycling Update

Improvements in Recycling Rates

The results of our annual bag count are in. There are some stunning improvements in recycling rates! The Graduate School of Education now recovers 68% of its refuse for recycling. This is higher than any other faculty of the University. Congratulations to Laurie Arena, Jason Carlson, Jane Eaton, Kimberly McMahon, Jan Still, and the rest of the HGSE Green Team! Thanks also to Dara Olmsted and Gosia Sklodowska of the Office for Sustainability for helping HGSE to boost its recycling to such high levels this year. Sincere congratulations also to these schools that are recovering over half of their refuse for recycling: Business School, Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Design, Divinity, Engineering & Applied Sciences, and Radcliffe Institute! Congratulations also to occupants of these MOST IMPROVED BUILDINGS, which raised recycling rates by 20% or more over the year before:

• 46 BLACKSTONE ST/U.O.S. (+20%)
• SEVER HALL/F.A.S. (+20%)
• LITTAUER/F.A.S. (+21%)
• CARPENTER CENTER/F.A.S. (+24%)
• ROBINSON HALL/F.A.S. (+24%)
• ADAMS HOUSE/F.A.S. (+26%)
• MOORS KITCHEN/H.U.D.S. (+26%)
• EMERSON HALL/F.A.S. (+29%)
• CLAVERLY HALL /F.A.S. (+29%)
• ADAMS KITCHEN/H.U.D.S (+31%)
• HURLBUT, PENNYPACKER & GREENOUGH HALLS/F.A.S. (all +34%)
• and last but not least, led by the amazing Arthur Robinson, LEVERETT DINING/H.U.D.S. (+41%)!

Misc News

April 1st brought two announcements. First, in an archaeological dig behind Eliot House, Zach Arnold '09 discovered a document sealed in a waxed, corked rum bottle that seems to have belonged to John Harvard, although authenticity is yet to be certified by the Harvard Archives. We had no idea John was such a sustainability advocate way back then! Read below:

The second was this stunning announcement which came in via email on April 1st. Ah, ah... Sloof Lirpa...

Sylvester "Sloof" Lirpa '77, an eccentric (but wealthy) alum, has proposed a novel approach to preventing bird strikes: placing all Harvard buildings underground. Mr. Lirpa has pledged $100 million to build a new dormitory/classroom building on (or under) the campus. Sloof Lirpa listed these advantages to an underground campus on his website "slooflirpa'77.com":

• No bird strikes
• Less need for heating in winter and cooling in summer, reducing energy expense and carbon footprint by 90%
• Absence of windows makes for tighter insulation
• Ground protects occupants from radiation in case of nuclear emergency
• Green space above dorm provides undisturbed habitat for native species
• Tunnel connectors to main transit and dining facilities, already in place for steam pipe maintenance access, provide shelter in inclement weather
• City noises are inaudible
• Fiber optics enable bright solar illumination
• Closed circuit TV displays ambient weather conditions to every room

Sloof Lirpa went on to advocate additional campus sustainability enhancements:

• Studying, reading, working and researching by fiber-optic-distributed sunlight only-less need for electric lighting in dorms, labs, libraries, offices and classrooms
• Adapting classrooms, labs, offices and libraries to become dormitories at night, reducing campus building needs & accommodating local homeless population
• Microscaling all experiments and demonstrations to eliminate hazardous chemicals and prevent the need for fume hoods
• Dining as much as possible on native flora and fauna (e.g. planting orchards in place of ornamentals; fishing during spring herring run on Charles River; hunting during autumn deer and moose season)
• Maintaining open fields for public ceremonies with sheep and goats in place of petro-fueled landscape maintenance (cull herds for holiday meals)
• Receiving supplies that cannot be obtained on or near campus at a plug in hybrid truck-friendly location where recyclables and compostables are on-loaded to manufacturer's and farmer's delivery trucks (zero empty trucks, zero waste)
• Hiking or biking to and from (and around) campus
• Getting workouts by competing in games based on digging the most soil and rock for future campus buildings

Cambridge Recycling News from Cambridge DPW:

Next Household Hazardous Waste Collection: April 25... 2009 collections will be April 25 &June 20, 9am-1pm at 450 Concord Ave. Cambridge residents only. To avoid contaminating local rivers, never pour chemicals down any drain. Hazardous waste must be brought an annual collection event.

Materials accepted include adhesives, car tires (limit of 4), chemicals, fluorescent bulbs, fuels, hobby &art supplies, cleaners &spot removers, car batteries, paints (oil &latex), poison &weed killers, propane tanks (20lbs or less). [Harvard Recycling will recover these items from campus buildings. Please call or email us for details.] You can place hardened cans of latex paint, lids off, with household trash on your collection day. For a complete list of materials accepted visit our website or call 617-349-4800.

The Recycling Center, located at 147 Hampshire St in the DPW yard, accepts fluorescent bulbs, non-alkaline batteries, motor oil and mercury-devices such as thermometers and thermostats during open hours: Tues/Thurs 4pm-7:30pm &Sat 9-4pm. The yard is closed to the public at all other times. Proof of residency required upon request.

Recycling Electronics and Appliances

Thanks to all 276 households that participated in the consumer electronics recycling event on Saturday, February 28. We collected 28,621 pounds of material for recycling! Please note that you can always recycle electronics and appliances in Cambridge, so click on the Cambridge Recycling website for details.

Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection is making a strong pitch for an Expanded Bottle Bill this year, to include nickel deposits on non-carbonated beverages like water, juices and sports drinks. The proposal would set aside $6 million to support recycling infrastructure in Massachusetts. Harvard Recycling is officially neutral on the Bottle Bill, although we are strongly in favor of reduced litter on our sidewalks and the fact that the BB provides nickels to people who might not otherwise have a chance to supplement their income. Read more here.

CAMPUS NATURE WATCH

• Pair of RED TAILED HAWKS build and incubate on a nest on Oxford Street in a WHITE PINE in front of Lyman directly across from the Harvard Museums of Natural History, where the excited members of the Ornithology Department on the 5th floor train a scope to watch them. [The same?] hawks copulate on top of the Science Building on March 10th ...Red-tailed hawk soars from over Sever into the Yard, while another checks out the green behind CGIS-North... Calling red-tailed Hawk flies over and beyond William James Hall. Soaring red-tailed flies behind the tower of Memorial Hall... Large red-tailed hawk perches low in the PLANE TREES in front of Lehman Hall, turning many student's heads.
• CROW flies into the Yard from the Coop side.
• MOURNING DOVE flies from behind 17 Sumner Road to a tall tree on the green behind CGIS-North.
• GREAT BLUE HERON flies low over Hoffman Laboratory... five more, then a pair fly in formation over Harvard Museums of Natural History later the same day (3-30-09).
• CANADA GEESE flock heads north above Oxford Street.
• HOUSE FINCHES return to the oak tree outside the 4th floor Holyoke Center window of a delighted Nature Watcher.
• Two SWANS dive for breakfast in the Charles River near 1230 Soldiers Field Rd. as the full moon sets at dawn.
• Behind 17 Sumner Rd. in an Oak, a DOWNY WOODPECKER on the underside of a horizontal limb and a White-breasted Nuthatch move down the trunk, foraging in harmony.
• HERRING GULL flies from over Sever toward Widener while another circles over Emerson Hall called loudly.
• MOURNING DOVE broods on a nest on a 3rd floor window ledge in Harvard Square.
• AMERICAN COOT swims lazily down the river across from Harvard Kennedy School.
• Flock of AMERICAN ROBINS hops on the greening grass outside of Thayer Hall... Cheerful "Cheerio!" robin mating call resounds off the brick facades in the Matthews-Straus quad.
• An unseen Downy Woodpecker whinnies out of sight near Memorial Church.
• Narrow sprouts of crocus and the wider ones of daffodils stand tall in the warming soil of the Faculty Club's rose garden.
• CGIS-North green sports a few spontaneous purple crocuses that last until being trampled under children's feet at a birthday party there. Purple crocuses grow along the side of Boylston facing Widener.
• Behind 17 Sumner Rd. a lone brave pale mauve crocus springs up early, but is forced to shut its petals on cold days; meanwhile, its neighbors struggle to grow enough to open.
• Tiny yellow bunches of flowers on the fruit trees bloom behind Grays Hall and at either corner of Dudley House.
• White, yellow and deep purple crocuses delight pedestrians in front of Loeb House; buds on various bushes in front of Wadsworth House swell to near-bursting. The tall WITCH HAZEL at the corner of Grays facing Boylston has little yellow florets.
• MOURNING CLOAK BUTTERFLY flits from the side of Sever to Memorial Chapel while Magnolias at the corner of Grays and Matthews show long fuzz-covered buds.

Thanks to Campus Nature Watchers Adam Blanchette, Gracie Brown, Marge Fisher, Miyako Fujiwara, Rob Furrow, Sonia Ketchian, Rachel Mak, Bob Stymeist & Jeremiah Trimble!