SURPLUS WANTED:

School in Bhutan needs digital projector for PowerPoint lessons. Please contact us if you have a surplus projector to give to Cambridge volunteer MD to ship there.

Community in Costa Rica’s Cloud Forest needs denim blue jeans, all sizes, which Harvard-affiliate and his family will take there in February. Please contact us if you have any to donate.

SURPLUS AVAILABLE
as of 3-25-11

Two custom-built LECTERNS, never used, available.

DESK STATIONS (2), mahogany veneer.

STANDARDS AND BRACKETS WITH SHELVING (20) 3-foot mahogany veneer shelves

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.

Thanks to Peter Siebert of the Harvard Planning Office for setting up this map. The Surplus Center is just to the west of 141 N Harvard St on the map.

Harvard College Library Green Team members, from left, Monique Duhaime, Andy Laplume, Lars Klint, George Clark and Timothy Driscoll pose with the large trash and recycling bins that were placed throughout Widener, Lamont, Pusey and Tozzer libraries as part of the Public Space Recycling Program. Photo by Peter Reuell

HHARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY REACHES 100% participation in the Office for Sustainability's Green Office Program! Led by chair Andy LaPlume, the HCL Green Team has made an unprecedented commitment to recycling, waste reduction, energy and water conservation. Andy worked with Harvard Recycling to install big 32-gallon white "Batteries Plus" barrels for recycling all batteries, handheld electronics, cell phones, inkjet cartridges, CD's, DVD's, audio tapes, video tapes and all related accessories. The 5-gallon buckets were just too small for their output! In addition, the Library has met the challenge of accommodating food and beverage containers generated at the popular Lamont Cafe, re-labeling hundreds of recycling signs and stations. They even compost their coffee grounds. All this hard work has paid off in a 10% increase in recycling and drop in trash generation of 36% over last year. This yields a recycling rate of 60%, beating the campus average by 5%, an outstanding achievement with the radically increased organics now in the waste stream. Kudos to Andy, Paul Bellenoit and the entire HCL Green Team!

 

HARVARD LEADS THE IVIES

HARVARD LEADS THE IVIES in RecycleMania, the inter-collegiate recycling competition, after Week Five of the eight-week contest. Campus-wide, we recycle more tons in total, recover more pounds per capita for recycling, and recycle a higher fraction of our waste stream than any other Ivy League school. We take a still-respectable second place in the Waste Minimization competition. UPenn with its campus bans on bottled water and plastic bags generates a scant one ounce less than Harvard per week. That’s the weight of one first-class mail letter, or one orange section, or half a gulp of coffee. So recycle that junk mail! Eat that orange! Get a smaller coffee next time! And let’s catch Penn so we can sweep RecycleMania this year. Thanks for all your help in keeping Harvard Recycling on top. The competition ends April 2. See full nation-wide results here.

 

GOOD, CHEAP COMPUTERS

GOOD, CHEAP COMPUTERS for sale! Surplus Harvard PC's and laptops refurbished by Semi-New Computers, with the help of special needs students from the LABBB Collaborative, are available for sale. "As our inventories have expanded we are now able to offer our desktop computers at three different price/capability levels. A Pentium 4 or Pentium 4 HT system with 512 KB RAM, 40 GB HD and 15" flat screen monitor for $100-- A Pentium D system with 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HD and 17" monitor for $150--- A Pentium Core 2 Duo or Pentium V-Pro system with 2 GB RAM, 100 GB HD and a 17" monitor. PLUS! Any system can be upgraded to an 18" or 19" monitor of an additional $50. We also have begun to get a small supply of laptops. For information on those or to get any further information about our services, people should contact either Charlie Thompson 617-721-5549 or Marlene Archer 781-883-3265. On the web at www.semi-newcomputers.com " FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY, all PC's are half price to Harvard employees and Allston-Brighton residents! Contact Semi-New for details.

 

VALENTINE'S DAY COSMETICS DRIVE

VALENTINE'S DAY COSMETICS DRIVE nets 548 pounds of toiletries for Cambridge Family Shelter! Thanks to all undergraduate, Law School and Business School Houses & Dorms and 33 academic & administrative offices for collecting surplus nail polish, hair treatments, make-up and other supplies for the residents of the shelter. See amazing inventory (2011) and happy residents (2009) photos elsewhere. Biggest donors this year were Harvard Business School, led by Stephen Coughlin (90 pounds); the Harvard-Smithsonian Observatory for Astrophysics, led by Janet Evans & Sherry Winkelman (75 pounds); Radcliffe Institute, led by Jennifer Piazza (50 pounds); and Harvard Ed School, led by Linda Kuczynski (40 pounds). Holyoke Center, led by Berley McKenna and Robin Nachman, narrowly beat out 1033 Mass Ave, led by Maureen Henry 35-30 pounds. Thanks to other Harvard Cupids Larry Black, Bob Byrne, Manny Casillas, Miguel Casillas, Sarah Colgan, Jane Collins, Kate Cosgrove, Marcia Diehl, Jennifer Eaton, Sheila Ferguson, Brandon Fernald, Alyson Galipeau, Katheryn Gullifa, Scott Hartshorn, Scott Haywood, Paul Hegarty, Carol Healy, Erin Hoffman, Henry Kesner, Roy Lauridsen, Cathy Lehar, Mario Leon, Elaine McArdle, Maureen McCarthy, Francisco Medeiros, Jeffrey Moura, Dick Nerden, Somer O'Brien, Robyn Ochs, Gail Olivier, Larry Paige, Mike Russell, Bob Sammonds, Bill Santoro, Nancy Shafman, Betsy Shortell, David Simms, Helena Sousa, Jorge Teixeiras, Gina Venturini, Barbara Wiberg, and Kate Zirpolo!

 

HARVARD GREEN CARPET AWARDS

Please join us at the annual HARVARD GREEN CARPET AWARDS at Sanders Theater in Memorial Hall on Monday, April 11 from 3:30-5:00 PM (with open bar reception for attendees from 5:00-6:00 PM at the Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub). We will celebrate the many dedicated and hard-working staff, faculty and students involved in campus sustainability initiatives at Harvard with distinguished guest presenters, live student performances, awards and more!

 

ARYT ALASTI RESCUES WELD HALL TILT TRUCK!

Memorial Hall Security Guard ARYT ALASTI RESCUES WELD HALL TILT TRUCK! Weld Hall's custodian, John Farrell, was stymied as he went to take the trash out of Weld Hall. The large green 200 gallon bin was missing one March morning. He had to shuttle the trash bags up to the collection spot by hand. At nearly $1,000, the bin is hard to replace in this era of constrained budgets. John and his supervisor, FMO Associate Manager Marie Holcombe, searched all over Harvard Yard for the missing receptacle. A few days later, Aryt sent an email to Rob Gogan of Harvard FMO Recycling stating that the bin had been abandoned at Memorial Hall. Rob dispatched the recycling box truck to retrieve the bin and return it to Weld Hall, to Marie and John's relief! Thanks Aryt!

 

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL COMPOSTS

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL COMPOSTS campus-wide, joining Harvard Divinity School as the University's only schools with composting in every building. The Office for Sustainability's Kate Cosgrove writes, "This campus composting expansion is a result of a partnership between the HLS Green Team, Green Living Program and FMO custodians that will make compost drop-off points more accessible to members of the HLS community who live and work in our dorms and buildings... University-wide about 25% of our waste is organic compostable material, and HLS waste audits have shown up to 40% compostable waste in dorm trash." Note just-released Rubbermaid green Slim Jim in photo, with snap-lid closure to keep compost free of pests and odors, and read more here.

 

HLS FASHION SWAPAGANZA

HLS FASHION SWAPAGANZA enables Law School students to swap clothing on Valentine's Day. Three truckloads of leftovers from the "Swapaganza" were donated to the Hildebrand Family Self-Help Center and the Heading Home emergency family shelter! The event was sponsored by the Women’s Law Association, HL Central, and the Green Living program. Thanks to HLS Green Living Rep Stephanie Young for this article. Read more here from the Office for Sustainability website.

 

HARVARD FMO RECYCLING GUIDEBOOK

Download our new HARVARD FMO RECYCLING GUIDEBOOK! Thanks to Mike Conner of UOS for invaluable help with production. Read about our new commitment to Zero Waste, current SingleStream recycling specifications, composting on campus, and a summary of all FMO Recycling & Waste Services here.

 

FOOD COSTS RISE

As FOOD COSTS RISE at an unprecedented rate, this is an excellent time to waste less food. About one barrel of oil is wasted every year for each one of us because of the amount of food scraps we waste. Read "Grist" to learn more about the consequences of our nation's bad food wasting habits here.

 

CAMPUS NATURE WATCH

• Boathouse Bunny and family kept warm all winter among the heating pipes of the Newell Boathouse. Photo by John Mansfield





• Owl gazes over Sandrine's Restaurant roof from among dense leaves of birch tree. lingering for several hours, then flies on. Photo by Andrew Gitchel




• BARRED OWL rests in a birch tree outside New College Theater office next to (fittingly) the Owl final club this fall before leaf drop.
  
  
• During deep snow-pack, ROBIN tries to feed on the shriveled crab apples still on the trees on the roof of Pusey Library. On 26 February, 16 robins eke out a meal among the crabapples on Oxford Street.
  
  
• RED-TAILED HAWK carries a heavy load of fresh prey from Holyoke Center to the Yard in search of a convenient dining tree… red-tailed couple builds a nest atop Maxwell Dworkin building, and bird-watcher installs camera nearby [does anyone know if this is a webcam we can visit? Please let us know!
  
  
• HOUSE SPARROWS and two GRAY SQUIRRELS benefit as a human birdlover tosses generous handsful of seeds onto the ice at the side of Wadsworth House facing Greys Hall. MOCKINGBIRD flies into the bare bush by the site, eyes the feeding sparrows and the two squirrels, and quickly plucks a small red-orange berry from the small YEW bush.
  
  
• Flock of 10 CANADA GEESE grazes on the emerging grass lawn of the Museum of Comparative Zoology on Oxford Street, for the first time in Ornithology Department’s collective memory; two of the geese are banded…huge flock of over 200 Canada geese descends noisily onto Smith Playground adjacent to Harvard Stadium.
  
  
• CHINESE WITCH HAZEL blooms with yellow and orange petals next to Law School’s stunning new Wasserstein Hall, Caspersen Student Center and Clinical Wing building.
  
  
• SNOW DROPS pop through the snow squall’s dustings at Sparks House.
  
  
• DAFFODIL greens emerge at William James Hall front beds.
  
  
• Purple and white CROCUSES adorn the garden in front of Loeb House, as resident robin stakes out breeding territory.
  
  
• Male HOUSE FINCH, proudly displaying brilliant scarlet plumage at the throat and nape, sings away at the top of his voice high up in a tree in front of Lehman Hall on the Mass Ave side facing the Coop.
  
  
• WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH calls from a tree on the Quincy Street side of the Sackler Museum (opposite the Cambridge Fire Station), flies to the tree next to it and soon moves off in search of better pickings in Harvard Yard.
  
  
• See spectacular photos taken by Sandy Selesky of the Center for European Studies during her trip to Malvina House on the Falkland Islands this winter! Penguins (gentoos, rockhoppers, kings) shower in a waterfall, cuddle, porpoise above the waves, care for their young and more! Also snipes, grebes, wrens, and teals among others, all posted here: http://www.pbase.com/sandylynn/falkland_islands
  
  
• ARCTIC ICEBREAKER? No, Joe Shea speeding up spring time by breaking up Charles ice to clear rowing lanes! Thanks to David L. Ryan, Boston Globe Staff. http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/03/a_sign_of_sprin.html
  
  

THANKS to Campus Nature Watchers Andrew Gitchel, Sonia Ketchian, John Mansfield, Joe Rebeiro, Sandy Selesky, Joe Shea, Bob Stymeist, Ray Traietti, and Jeremiah Trimble.

 

"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."

Berkeley Ecology Center

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