See why this building won Harvard's first LEED Platinum certification:
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Desks, tables, chairs, file cabinets, office supplies. Watch Craig’s List for latest inventories released Tuesdays before distribution when supplies justify special announcement.
Desktop PC's with hard drives!
For the last three years, Harvard FMO Recycling has been working with he LABBB Collaborative, a Lexington-based program that trains and employs autistic and other special needs students of high school age. LABBB repairs, refurbishes, and re-sells Pentium 3 or newer personal computers. So far this year, they have sold 26 units from Harvard's surplus! All PC's are purged of data using the US Department of Defense-approved KillDisk program, cleaned, tested, and equipped with software. A desktop set including CPU, keyboard, mouse and flatscreen monitor costs $150. Please let us know if you'd like to clear out your used PC's.
Free Surplus Furniture and other items are available at our Recycling and Surplus Center in Allston every Thursday, including Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve! If donating furniture, please instruct your movers to contact us 24 hours before delivery 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. 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. Everything is free, first-come, first-served and open to everyone.
Buy refurbished Harvard computers and help employ autistic students from the LABBB program! Click here for more information about the LABBB program. Price is only $150. Click here for purchasing information.
Sample unit: IBM 8143 Tower CPU & 17" SVGA Flat-Screen Monitor; Pentium 4 - 3.0 GHz - 512 MB RAM - 40 GB HD - CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive - 1 GB NIC - 1.44 FD - 4 USB
Thanks to Dara Olmsted of the Office for Sustainability for this waste-busting tip via HARVIE: "You can now opt out of the paper versions of the Resource & Magazine via Peoplesoft. There’s a tab called "Harvard Publications" under "Self Service." You can get online versions of all:
See video from angry recyclers at Associated Students of Cal State Chico:
Video
A Harvard lab is looking for surplus ROUGHING PUMPS (to get to about 10^-2 torr) and high vacuum pumps. Also, the lab is also looking for an OVEN WITH MICROPROCESSOR CONTROLS capable of programming the oven to heat up and cool down with a specific timeline. Heating based on a schedule means you’re only heating when you need to, not all the time! Please contact us if you have any of this equipment to donate.
Harvard Habitat for Humanity Hardware Sale will return in February. Email Habitat for details.
"Printing in haste makes waste; keep it green and read from your screen!"
Harvard students model snappy vests and safety glasses during the tour of Casella Recycling in November. Photo by Michael Aziz.
HARVARD TOURS CASELLA RECYCLING! A busload of Harvard visitors toured the Casella Recycling plant in Charlestown, where Harvard sends its basic recyclables. If you were unable to make the tour, check out this link suggested by Dara Olmsted of the Office for Sustainability here.
A MRF film from the Science Channel is here.
See Professor Aziz's photos of our tour by clicking below. Students, faculty and staff from FAS, the Business School, the Kennedy School, the Design School, the Extension School, and Radcliffe Institute all participated. Thanks to Professor Michael Aziz for posting them! Click here for pictures.
Dropping 13% from FY09 levels through this past November. Since 2004, our campus trash production has fallen by 48%. Our recycling continues at a rate of 55%, a record for this month. There's still lots more work to do. We are still generating 1.32 POUNDS OF TRASH PER PERSON DAILY. So please think about alternatives to items now going into your trash, and make a New Year's Resolution to prevent them in 2010. Take reusable shopping bags with you instead of accepting single-use paper or plastic ones. Carry a steel, aluminum or plastic mug (resins 1, 2, and 5 are still considered OK) and avoid generating single-use cups or bottles. Reuse boxes for shipping or moving containers. Rent or lease more items. Build community and save Harvard money by sharing your surplus with other departments at FreeCycle events as the Kennedy School and School of Education did last month. Thanks to all of you for smart procurement, waste reduction, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, refinishing, re-selling, recycling and composting in 2009!
Student REPs from the FAS Resource Efficiency Program and Harvard Recycling conducted the 12th annual Waste Audit on Wednesday, 11-12-09. The Audit assesses how well Harvard undergraduate residents separate recyclable papers, cardboard, bottles & cans by measuring the weight of these items discarded as trash and not recycled. The team audited a random sample of 32 trash bags generated by Harvard undergraduate residences between Monday 11-9 and Wednesday 11-11. Dressed in protective gowns, dust masks, goggles and gloves, auditors separated the refuse into five categories: single-stream recyclables (paper, cardboard, bottles, cans, cups and containers made of plastics 1-7); reusables; compostables; and trash. Results showed that RECYCLABLES COMPRISED 32% OF THE TRASH. Last year, 31% of Harvard’s trash was recyclable. This was the lowest fraction since the Audits began in 1999. Thus this year’s sample nearly matched last year’s. “Boxes, bottles and cans are the most abundant recyclables I saw,” said Rob Gogan, Recycling and Waste Services Manager for Facilities Maintenance Operations. Reusables were 12% of this year’s trash. Overall, recyclables and reusables were 44% of the sample. Reusables discarded as trash included two brand new pairs of jeans with tags still on them, various used but serviceable articles of clothing, terrycloth washcloths and towels. Thanks to Brandon Geller, who not only led his REPs through the trash sort, he also lightened the trash by taking home a brand new leather belt!
In this spirit of re-use, the HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL and the GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION both ran FreeCycle events. HGSE "freecycled" OVER 100 BINDERS and more! Linda Endicott reports that the event included office supplies as well as children's items (thanks to our partnership with OSA). One of the highlights of the day was starting out with approximately 125 three-ring binders, and ending the day with about 14! We had great support from the Operations Department as well as Harvard FMO Recycling & Waste Services. See photos from the HKS event here.
Harvard Kennedy School ran a “FreeCycle” event in December. Photo by Vidya Sivan.
The City of Cambridge Inspectional Services Division has required all properties in Cambridge, whether for-profit or non-profit institutions like ours, to file DUMPSTER LICENSE PERMITS by January 1, 2010. Working with Gary Alpert and Chris Centrella of Environmental Health and Safety, we have submitted permits for all Cambridge properties owned by the University. Please help us comply with the spirit of this license by keeping your trash, recycling and compostables neat and secure in lidded, rodent-proof containers. Please also train everyone who uses your refuse receptacles including barrels, dumpsters and toters, to close the lids after using them and keep the area free of litter and debris. Please contact us if you have any questions about this.
During snowy and icy winter months, building staff needs to KEEP TRASH AND RECYCLING CONTAINERS ACCESSIBLE to the trucks that pick them up. Please remove snow and ice so that your refuse can be removed safely. A common problem is disposal of ice from catered events that doesn't melt during extended cold periods, which then builds up a layer of ice that can prevent level placement of receptacles. This can lead to misalignment and leakage from the hydraulic hoses that power compactor units. If your compactor is running slowly in cold weather, consider using a space heater to keep fluids from gelling up.
The Office for Sustainability’s Occupant Engagement team has composed FABULOUS HARVARD RECYCLING SIGNS, labels and posters. Thanks to the steady support (not to mention creativity, advocacy, and general social marketing savvy) of this vital service to the University, including Dara Olmsted, Philip Kreycik, Brandon Geller and all the REPs, Claire Berezowicz, Carol Healy, Cara Ferentino, and Jaclyn Olsen. Download them by clicking here.
Are you wondering what all those ENVIROMENTAL CERTIFICATIONS FOR PAPER mean? The Responsible Procurement Network of the Center for a New American Dream has made up this chart to explain what those leaves, trees, sprigs and checklists mean. We like the Forest Stewardship Council's tree-with-checkmark and what it stands for.
This winter, clean out those closets, shelves and back rooms and recycle your computers! We can take any and all monitors, keyboards, CPU's, mice, UPS batteries, CD's, DVD's, cords, cables, external hard drives and any other computer part, computer chip, or computer chunk! We also recycle land-line phones, media equipment, printers, copiers etc. Cell phones can always be recycled in our "Batteries Plus" buckets. If you need help moving your equipment down to street level for pickup, please contact your Building Manager. We will be happy to drop an empty 18-bushel blue hamper to your building for you to fill up. FMO Landscape Services is available (on any day unless it's snowing!) to help carry the computers to a truck-friendly location. Please contact us when you're ready to purge!
Massachusetts Governor DEVAL PATRICK SIGNS RESOLUTIONS extending ban on incinerator construction, increasing support for recycling, and promoting procurement of goods and services that conserve natural resources, reduce waste, protect public health and the environment, and promote the use of clean technologies, recycled materials, and less toxic products. Read more below:
Article 1
Article 2
SEEDING LABS CELEBRATES COLLECTING over 100 microscopes, centrifuges, freezers and other laboratory equipment to be shipped to Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya. Much of the equipment and supplies came from Harvard laboratories. Harvard Recycling has supported Seeding Labs by consolidating the donations from the Cambridge campus and storing them until shipping time came. His Excellency Ambassador Peter N. R. O. Ogego came to acknowledge his nation’s gratitude for the gifts. Read the story on Seeding Labs’ web page here:
The Boston Globe had an article about Seeding Labs which mentions Harvard FMO Recycling which you can read here.
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
