SURPLUS DISTRIBUTION

Bound collection of Harvard Gazettes from 1969-about 2003, which might make a great addition to someone’s library. Please let us know if you are interested and we will connect you with the donor.

SURPLUS FURNITURE

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. All loose items must be boxed in 24" x 40" bin boxes, staged on pallets. Movers must provide their own boxes, but pallets are available 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.

Here is a map, thanks to Peter Siebert of the Planning Office, showing the location of our Recycling and Surplus Center.

PARTIAL SAMPLING

A PARTIAL SAMPLING of goods available for distribution:

• 100 BAGS OF STORM SAND, 50-lb bags, ideal for construction or sandboxes.
• DORM FURNISHINGS including storage crates, waste baskets, room humidifiers, flower vases and more
• OFFICE SUPPLIES including 3-ring binders, writing implements, art supplies and more
• COMPUTER SERVER TOWERS
• COMPUTER PARTS
• SWIVEL CHAIRS

Happy shopper snags oak dining room chair at a bargain price at a previous year’s Stuff Sale.
Photo by Rob Gogan

Stuff Sale Final Weekend

Please support our efforts to cut Move-out trash, raise money for Harvard Habitat for Humanity, and reduce the need to buy new materials. Shop the "Stuff Sale" this Saturday and Sunday, September 3 and 4. This week, total sale income through the 16 years of Stuff Sales has SURPASSED $500,000! Thanks for your generous support. We send warm congratulations to Molly O'Donnell '12, current Stuff Sale Captain and her stalwart crew of 10 volunteers, who braved Tropical Storm Irene to sell over 300 cubic yards of goods this past weekend. This is the first summer HHH has finished their season with all volunteers still on board. The Stuff Sale can now take payment in credit cards as well as cash and checks for purchase of any of their goods, including textbooks, furniture, office supplies, waste baskets, games, toys, rugs and more! All funds go to support HHH's activities to build housing for the needy. Sales will run Saturday and Sunday, 9 AM to 5 PM on the Science Center Lawn, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge.

 

Brickends Farm Compost Tour

Monday, September 5, Labor Day, a mixed group from across Harvard will visit the Hamilton MA facility that composts most of Harvard's food scraps. Our bus leaves Harvard Square at 9 AM and returns by 1. There is still limited space on the bus. See how compost nourishes community supported agriculture operations and vermiculture. Read more about our March trip: http://hgci2.net/harvard-composts For general information about composting at Harvard, check page 9 of our "Harvard Recycling Guidebook".

 

The Anthropology of Waste

Have you ever met a Trash Anthropologist? That’s the job title of Robin Nagle, PhD, and she is coming to Harvard! New York City Department of Sanitation's one-and-only official Anthropologist-in-Residence will speak on "Learning to Unsee" at the Harvard Peabody Museum on Thursday, September 15 at 5:30 PM. This is the first of a series, called "Trash Talk: the Anthropology of Waste." ADMISSION IS FREE and the Peabody's Geological Lecture Hall is located at 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, a 5 minute walk from the Red Line's Harvard Square station. Parking is challenging, but here’s information at this link: http://www.peabody.harvard.edu/directions#parking Look for Harvard Recycling to present in the series later this year. Download the Peabody's calendar for the fall semester here: http://www.peabody.harvard.edu/files/2011%20Fall%20Cal_0.pdf . More upcoming events from the series:

• September 22
  "Rags, Bones and Plastic Bags: Trash in Industrial America", Susan Strasser, History Professor, University of Delaware, author of "Waste and Want: a Social History of Trash"
• October 6
  "The Archaeologists's View of Trash," Richard Meadow, Director of the Zooarchaeology Laboratory, Peabody Museum
• October 26
  "Trash Track: Reverse Engineering the Removal Chain," Dietmar Offenhuber, SENSEable City Lab, MIT
• October 27
  RESULTS DAY, Harvard Yard archaeological dig, Matthews Hall, Harvard Yard, 1:30 - 4:30 PM
• December 1
  "Products, Plastics, Putrefaction and Power: Rethinking how we Manage Materials to Achieve Just Sustainability," Samantha McBride, Adjunct Professor, Columbia University.

 

Cambridge Curbside Recycling Services

Our host City of Cambridge offers a wide range of recycling services to Cambridge residents. Check out this link to learn what easy materials management options you Cantabrigians may not know about. Meryl Brott, formerly of the Harvard Office for Sustainability and now working for Cambridge Recycling Division, says "Thanks for your help and all your support of Cambridge recycling. If anyone has Cambridge recycling questions please feel free to directly them to me or to recycle@cambridgema.gov."

 

Fall Freecycles!

Give us your tired folders, your poor pencils, your huddled staplers yearning to FreeCycle! These campus swap events share all kinds of useful items, including all office supplies and equipment; books; clothes; kitchen equipment and serviceware; tools and hardware; abandoned items of all kinds, or any other manufactured item. Clean out those closets of unproductive clutter and get what you actually need, all free of charge!

• September 6, Tuesday:
  The Faculty of Arts and Sciences Green Program FreeCycle, Science Center Lawn, 1 Oxford Street, from 11 AM - 2 PM.
• September 16, Friday:
  Holyoke Center FreeCycle, Harvard Information Center, street level, 1350 Mass. Ave, from 11 AM - 2 PM

 

The Greenhouse Gas of Everyday Things

The carbon footprint of products over their entire life-cycle became easier to measure this week when the "Scope Three Accounting and Reporting Standards" was announced by the World Resources Institute in conjunction with the Geneva-based World Business Council for Sustainable Development. The US EPA has estimated that 42% of greenhouse gases are generated during extraction, refinement, manufacturing, distribution and disposal or recycling of manufactured goods and foods. These standards will become more and more important as retailers like Wal-Mart and institutions like Harvard incorporate more environmental performance standards into their procurement policies. See the beautiful diagram and read the protocol for the Corporate Value Chain Accounting and Reporting Standard (including the Executive Summary here). For several other publications at the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative, read below.
http://www.ghgprotocol.org/standards/scope-3-standard

 

CAMPUS NATURE WATCH

• Two EASTERN COTTONTAIL RABBITS nibble the grass in front of Loeb House; three more graze on the grassed-over roof of Pusey Library. Late summer bunny count drops due to hawks’ hunting them… read below:
  
  
• RED-TAILED HAWK peers intently in the direction of Houghton, aware that rabbits have been abundant there; when a large adult emerges, the hawk swoops in, plucks the cottontail off the green in its talons and flies away.
  
  
• PEREGRINE FALCON dodges attacking dives of two MOCKINGBIRDS as it perches on one of the spires of Memorial Hall.
  
  
• Young CARDINAL spends time at 1746 Cambridge Street and flies across to the trees of the Design School and back again.
  
  
• CABBAGE BUTTERFLY, BEES and WASPS enjoy the flowers in the Faculty Club's Rose Garden.
  
  
• Several DRAGONFLIES circle on the garden roof of Pusey.
  
  
• The HBS campus thrums with the sounds of crickets and cicadas – the steady purring and chirping of the crickets, and the louder buzzing and shaking noises of the cicadas, which rise and fall in volume.
  
  

Thanks to Campus Nature Watchers Sonia Ketchian, Rosalyn Reiser and Prudence Steiner!

 

Walmart´s "Sustainability Index"
"Our customers desire products that are more efficient, last longer and perform better. They want to know the product´s entire lifecycle. They want to know the materials in the product are safe, that it is made well and is produced in a responsible way."

"These desires inspired us to help develop the sustainability index. With this initiative, we are helping create a more transparent supply chain, accelerate the adoption of best practices and drive product innovation and ultimately providing our customers with information they need to assess products´ sustainability."
From Walmart´s website:
http://walmartstores.com/sustainability/9292.aspx

Contact Us

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