UOS | Facilities Maintenance Operations | Recycling

New site for sustainability programs at UOS!

When you log on to www.uos.harvard.edu/sustainability you'll find comprehensive information on all of our programs and services that help improve the environment. New this month, details on the Solar Thermal System recently installed at Blackstone. Plus, learn how Engineering and Utilities is saving energy the 'cool' way.

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Surplus furniture and other items are available at our Recycling and Surplus Center in Allston every Thursday from 11 AM -- 2 PM. 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 FMO Recycling & Waste Services, and we can never receive any trash or hazardous waste.

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FULL TRASH & RECYCLING SERVICE. Monday, Presidents Day, 2-16-09.

HARVARD RECYCLING IN THE NEWS! Read what we told the New York Times "Green, Inc." blog about paper towels, here.

VALENTINE'S DAY COSMETICS DRIVE is in full swing! Thanks to all you Valentine Volunteers, unused cosmetics are going to the Cambridge Family Shelter. Contact us to find out the Donation Station nearest your building.

Support the MASS RECYCLES PAPER campaign! See this website for wonderful posters showing how many kinds of paper is recyclable. All this paper can go with Harvard's SingleStream specifications. www.MassRecyclesPaper.org

January 2009 - View Archive

January Harvard Recycling Update

Help build a Bristle-Bot! A student in an Applied Mathematics course seeks used toothbrushes for help in building small robots. If you have some, please bag up in a clear plastic bag and inter-office mail to us by 13 February, 2009.

BEST MONTH EVER!

In December, Harvard recovered 57% of its refuse for recycling. This has brought our year-to-date recycling rate up to 55%, also an all-time high. Thanks to all you thrifty reducers, reusers and recyclers!

For the next ten weeks, we have even more incentive to recycle. From now through 3-28-09, the RecycleMania Competition ranks Harvard among 510 campuses across North America (plus the Rajarambapu Institute of Technology in Maharashtra, India). Last year we ranked 2nd in the nation (to a school in Palo Alto, CA) and 1st in the Ivy League in tons recovered for recycling. Let's make it to #1 in the US this year! We are even more excited that the entire Ivy League has signed up for the first time. In 2008, Penn (and only Penn) beat us by recovering less trash per capita than we did. Let's out-thrift the Quakers this year! It may be difficult as Penn has banned plastic bags from all sales venues on campus. Maybe we should work on this too. To see current standings, click here: www.recyclemaniacs.org

CommuterChoice Bike Shelter is OPEN!

Bicyclists across the University have a new way to protect their rides. Transportation Services and CommuterChoice recently opened a covered bike shelter near the newly completed Francis Ave. parking lot close to the Divinity School. The shelter is large enough to protect 74 bikes from the elements and the interior will soon be illuminated by solar powered lights. It's another example of how UOS is committed to encouraging the use of alternative transportation and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

For more information visit www.commuterchoice.uos.harvard.edu

Computer recycling can save energy!

We can help you scrap those old servers, monitors, printers and CPU's. Please call us and we'll see that they are disassembled and responsibly recycled, not just dumped overseas where environmental regulations are lax. For instance, "a Sun 280R server, for example, can use 800 Watts, and they're slower than a V210 using less than half that," according to Betsy Swartz of the Graduate School of Design.

READ ABOUT REP!

Harvard Recycling is co-founder of this wonderful organization which promotes recycling and reduces environmental impacts in Harvard undergrad dorms. Harvard was one of the first campuses to host an EcoRep organization (with UVM and Tufts). See pictures of Mt. Trashmore and more in "Yard Magazine," published by the FAS Development Office for distribution to Harvard parents. Read the article here

Other News:

- Remember to lug-a-mug and tote-a-tote! It's a new year. Start a new habit! You may need to lug that mug all the way home to find a convenient washing place. But it's worth it. We're supposed to work especially hard on preventing waste these days, right? Fellow Green Crimsonites will appreciate your eco-diligence!

- Harvard Law School Joint Council "HOW GREEN ARE WE at HLS?" at 332 Pound Hall at 12 noon on Tuesday, 3 February 2009. Learn about HLS's many efforts at reducing waste, conserving energy and enhancing the environment. Panelists include John Arciprete, Director of Facilities Management; Cara Ferrentino, HLS Sustainability Coordinator; and Rob Gogan, Manager, Harvard Recycling & Waste Services.

- See SUSTAINABILITY POSTERS on how to green up your office at the Harvard Sustainability site. "The Evolution of Man and Stuff" CERtoon poster alone is worth a look: http://www.greencampus.harvard.edu/cerp/greentip.php

- The ARNOLD ARBORETUM NEEDS RECYCLING VOLUNTEERS this Lilac Sunday, 5-10-09. The Arboretum wants to reduce its trash at the biggest public event they run all year. Are you interested in helping people sort recyclables and compostables from trash? If so, please let us know and we'll forward your names for their list!

- Learn the beautiful Japanese art of FUROSHIKI-- reusable cloths for gift wrapping, bags, carriers and more. Thanks to Akio Sone and Stephen Coady for the tip! Watch the video here.

- 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. Our preferred vendor is DataShredder at 1-800-622-1808.

- 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.

- Thanks for your questions on our Harvie Chat about Harvard Recycling! You need to log into Harvie first. See the transcript here.

CAMPUS NATURE WATCH

• BALD EAGLE wings its way over Lowell House and the MAC just before sunset. Perhaps this is the bird recently seen over the Charles in Waltham.
• RED-TAILED HAWK uses humans to camouflage attack on a squirrel: Large hawk spots a squirrel on the Harvard Museums of Natural History lawn, then flies in low and deliberately adjusts its speed and angle to keep a passing pedestrian between itself and its prey. At the last instant, the hawk brushes over the shoulder of its startled human cover, seizes the rodent, and flies away with it.
• Two RED-TAILED HAWKS, hunting as a team in pursuit of a STARLING, swoop into the Busch Hall courtyard and land close to the atrium window where there are some rosebushes. Trying to dodge the hawks, the starling hits the window, falls, and climbs into a bush to hide. Despite the thorns, bare rosebush branches offer insufficient shelter, and one of the red-taileds dashes in and seizes the starling in its talons. He sits atop a courtyard lamp for a few minutes, then takes off with his trophy, while the other red-tail flies up and sits on the lower roof for a few minutes (probably hoping for another bird to come along) before flying off.
• RED-TAILED HAWK flies towards large lone maple tree near 175 N. Harvard, low to the ground, like an avian cruise missle. Flock of hundreds of STARLINGS leaps to the air, wheeling in terror from the raptor, their wing feathers flashing by turns black, transluscent gray and iridescent as they shift their orientation in the bright winter sun. With no meal available, the hawk continues flying north.
• GREAT BLUE HERON flies eastward towards the Atlantic high above the Shad Athletic Center. Both the snow-capped roof and the heron are washed pink with the light of the setting winter sun.
• Female CARDINAL chirps in the bush outside the Middle Eastern Center as if to herald the beginning of (another) snowfall.
• WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH calls many times as it moves in the upper reaches of the Oak on the Sever side of Emerson before flying into Tercentenary Theatre. Two crows fly over the green behind CGIS-North toward the Graduate School of Design.
• AMERICAN ROBIN in the CRABAPPLE trees on the roof of Pusey busily chases away smaller birds from what remains of his treasure in the wake of many birds feasting on the fruit last month.
• SNOWMAN with a lovely igloo house next to him moves in to Wigglesworth and Boylston. Another snowman enlivens New Year's Day on the Sever Quad by Emerson Hall.
• THANKS to Campus Nature Watchers Marge Fisher, Sonia Ketchian, Jim MacArthur and Sandy Selesky!