SURPLUS AVAILABLE

SURPLUS AVAILABLE: Kodak camera tripod. Please contact us and we will put you in touch with the donor.

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 WANTED

One of our residential kitchens is looking for a PAPER CUTTER – one of those guillotine ones –(or two). If so, please let us know and we will connect you with the recipient.

SURPLUS WANTED: ARTIST EASELS

SURPLUS WANTED: ARTISTS EASELS for the Essex Art Center.  Dick Purinton, Harvard Class of 1952, supports this 17 year-old program offering courses in painting, ceramics, metalsmithing, drawing and more to children and adults of the Merrimack Valley.  If you have one or more wooden easels, please let us know, as they need 15.

SURPLUS FURNITURE

SURPLUS FURNITURE and other items are available at our Recycling and Surplus Center in Allston every Thursday, except Thanksgiving Day, 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 includes chairs, desks, tables and office supplies.

Again, HARVARD SURPLUS WILL BE CLOSED 11-24-11, THANKSGIVING DAY. THANKS FOR REDUCING, REUSING AND RECYCLING!

Brandon Geller ’08 and REP Captains Annie Baldwin ‘13 and Akshay Sharma ’14 help Harvard Freshman parents recover recycling and composting to boost Harvard’s GameDay Challenge recycling rate to 71% this year. Photo by Rob Gogan

Best GameDay Recycling Challenge Yet

GAMEDAY CHALLENGE RECOVERS EVEN MORE RECYCLABLES and compostables this year! Two years ago, Harvard Athletics helped the US Environmental Protection Agency pilot its “GameDay Challenge” competition, in which colleges made an all-out effort to recover the maximum fraction of recyclables, reusables and compostables, from football games and associated tailgate events, meals and other festivities, while reducing per capita trash to zero. Back then in 2009, we recovered 58% of our refuse for recycling or composting.  In 2010, this figure was 62%. This year, visitors to the Bucknell game on 10-15-11 recovered a whopping 71%. Crimson Catering gave out reusable lunch bags at the Freshman Parents Tailgate Lunch, which greatly reduced the amount of uneaten food waste, as the bags enabled diners to save food or drinks for later. The Center for Homeless Veterans picked up unserved meals. Thanks to Jason Waldron, Jason Luke, Madeline Meehan, Paula O’Callahan, the Resource Efficiency Program, Cambridge Landscape, and last but not least, Brandon Geller of the Office for Sustainability. We’ll let you know how we fared against the 82 other schools competing this year. This Saturday, 11-12-11, when the Crimson plays UPenn, we will make another all-out effort to capture recyclables and compostables as part of our campus efforts towards America Recycles Day, 11-15-11. Recycling has now become standard practice at all Athletics major events, with landscape clean-up crews picking up properly-separated cardboard, cans, bottles and papers for recycling and food scraps for composting, along with the litter discarded as trash.

 

Recycling after Birthday Party for Thousands

 The Harvard 375th Anniversary Celebration 10-14-11, when 15,000 rain-drenched revelers drank cider, sang “Happy Birthday” while accompanied by YoYo Ma, and danced until midnight in Harvard Yard, yielded over a ton of recyclables (mostly cardboard) and another ton of compost, while generating only 400 pounds of trash. This resulted in a 68% SPECIAL EVENT RECYCLING RATE. The compost was contaminated with a high proportion of plastic film ponchos, memorabilia (e.g. Leverett House “BamBams”) and petro-foam cups from outside the event, so we had to send it to a mixed-waste composting facility capable of screening out the inorganic items. Best re-use triumph was by the sculptor and archery enthusiast we found the next day who picked up the gigantic foam blocks on which the 62-sheet birthday cake was staged and frosted. The archer told us that after scraping off 45 pounds of frosting, he had ideal bases on which to attach his big game and Orc monster targets. Read more about our recycling efforts in Harvard Magazine.

 

Wish You Lived in Seattle?

Let's bring Seattle ethics here! Watch "Unwasted: the Future of Business on Earth," a 54-minute on-line documentary by Sage Environmental Services Inc., features interviews at Safeco Field, the University of Washington, environmental organization offices, Waste Management, and others who all point out the economic as well as environmental and social benefits of using materials efficiently. Hear how Seattlites cheerfully practice recycling, composting, refurbishing, refining and other techniques.

 

'Trash Talk'

Peabody Museum’s “Trash Talk” series continues with a lecture Thursday, 12-1-11 at 5:30 PM. Samantha MacBride, Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University, will speak about “Products, Plastics, Putrefaction and Power: How We Manage Materials to Achieve Just Sustainability.” Geological Lecture Hall, 24-26 Oxford Street, Cambridge.

 

Common Threads Initiative

Join Patagonia's Common Threads Initiative-- reuse, repair, recycle all products! Patagonia is one company that understands producer responsibility.

Marked Red Earthenware excavated and identified by Professor Christina Hodge; Harvard’s first Dining Commons as it might have looked in 1640.

 

Pedal-Powered "Trailgating"

Pedal-Powered "Trailgating" at Clemson University shows how collaboration between Engineering, Architecture and Business developed a bicycle-carried shelter for pre-game parties to accommodate six people with food, drinks and cooking paraphernalia. This unit dramatically reduces the carbon footprint of tailgating and also enables partiers to access choicest locations without bringing another vehicle onto crowded athletics parking.

 

Poster by Max Tekin

See this fabulous Poster by Max Tekin about the conundrum that many people use single-use petro-plastic spoons instead of toting and washing reusable ones. Read a provocative blog discussion inspired by the quote on the poster. Thanks to Mike Crowley for "Liking" this on Facebook!

Paper Take-out Cups are Recyclable

Confused about coffee cups? Best thing is to tote a reusable mug! But if you must take out, all paper coffee cups and their plastic lids are recyclable with Harvard’s SingleStream recycling specifications. We still cannot recycle any foam cups, though polystyrene lids are recyclable. The “EcoTainer” brand of paper cup is also compostable. Please empty your cups before recycling.

Kirkland House Breaks World Record for Box Fort

Thanks to recycling, Kirkland House Breaks World Record for Box Fort building...Read more in Harvard Crimson.

Devon Newhouse ‘13 with her Harvard-issued mug. Note initials, like those of her ancient forebears excavated from Harvard Yard this summer by students of Anthropology S-1130 Professor Christina Hodge. Photo by Annie Baldwin

SEAS/FAS/HLS FreeCycle

SUPER FREECYCLE Wednesday, 11-30-11, from 11 AM – 2 PM, Maxwell Dworkin Lobby. Three faculties combine to display an enormous quantity of new or gently-used goods from the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Law School, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. If you want to volunteer, donate or swap, please contact:

• Kate Cosgrove, HLS Sustainability: kathryn_cosgrove@harvard.edu;
• Gosia Sklodowska, FAS Sustainability:  Gosia_sklodowska@harvard.edu ;
• or Kate Zirpolo-Flynn, SEAS Green Team: kzirpolo@seas.harvard.edu