SURPLUS WANTED

Please let us know if you have a surplus band saw to donate. The technology teachers at the Ottoson Middle School, Arlington, are in need of a band saw in good condition for classroom projects. They prefer a Jet 14" Model JWBS - 14C Paxton/Patterson or a facimile but any band saw in good condition would do.

Harvard affiliate needs stereoscopic microscope for personal research. Do you have any surplus ones to give her? Please email us if so.

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 AVAILABLE

Boston-Cambridge visitor pamphlet from Breater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau, includes small map of Freedom Trail, approx 200.

Laminated "Professor Publisher" map of Harvard campus by Hedberg maps, updated 12-06. Includes Murr Ctr, CGIS, and Spangler. Map is now out of print.

SURPLUS DISTRIBUTION

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:

A PARTIAL SAMPLING of goods available for distribution includes chairs, desks, tables and office supplies.

From Harvard to the Costa Rica cloud forest: COSAS trailer gets ready for shipment. Helpers, from left to right: Adams House custodians Ramon Francisco Casas, Juan Francisco Cruz, and Edson Callejas; Harvard sophomore Zak Aossey ’14, Harvard FMO Recycling drivers Dave Costa and Ed Bettencourt.
Photo by Tom Howell

Harvard ships first COSAS container to Costa Rica

Tom Howell and his wife Sharon, Allston Burr Resident Dean of Adams House, founded COSAS last year to help provide needed goods to residents of Costa Rica's remote cloud forest near San Luis. Tom and friends loaded andshipped out 11-8-11. At least half the goods wererecovered from Harvard surplus, including furniture, clothing,computers, and cookware. Tom traveled to Costa Rica to receive and distribute the goods, which arrived at the port of Limon on 11-28-11. See photos below, including amazing shot of Harvard student mini-refrigerator getting perched on the shoulders of a customer’s mule for transport into the hills. Thanks to all donors, as well as all who helped the Howells bag, sort, clean, wrap and pack up the goods for reuse!

Tom loads out! Tom Howell sends container of Harvard goods on its way to Costa Rica, FOB Allston MA. Photo by Rob Gogan

Harvard mini-fridge heads into Costa Rica cloud forest transported by customer’s mule. Photo by Tom Howell.

Sharon and Ethan Howell scan “Cosas” shop furnished largely with goods recovered from Harvard. Photo by Tom Howell.

 

 

Recyclemania Tournament Kicks Off

For the tenth year, Harvard is signed up for RecycleMania, an EPA-sponsored competition with 539 campuses signed up to date. This year, we are inaugurating “E-cycleMania” from 2-13-12 through 3-2-12. Harvard Houses and dorms will compete with each other to see who can recover the most hand-held electronics. Every Building Manager’s Office and all Yard recycling room “Batteries” boxes will be weighed and reported weekly. Students, staff and faculty living in residences served by Harvard Recycling can recycle any and all batteries, cell phones, inkjets, compact fluorescent lamps, iPods, iPads, PDA’s, charger cords, headphones, belt clips, adapter plugs, all other electronics accessories, all e-media including CD’s, DVD’s, audio tapes, video tapes, thumb drives and all other e-media. See if your House can win bragging rights at Housing Day, when results will be announced. Each week’s winning House and Dorm will get a battery tester so that residents can get full value from their batteries before recycling them. Please email us if you have any questions about “Batteries” Plus bucket locations.

 

Recycling Driver Saves Brand New iPhone

Harvard undergrads have a lot on their minds the first week of the semester. One Yardling was so distracted that she discarded a bag containing a brand new iPhone, still in the box, into one of our locked BigBelly solar trash compactors one evening. She frantically called Lorcan Carleton at the Operations Center, who notified evening shift Custodial Crew Supervisor Desi Callahan and Rob Gogan of Harvard Recycling. Desi met the student and told her that Harvard Recycling driver Nelson Medeiros would open the bin and retrieve the phone in the morning, although compaction might have crushed the phone. By the dawn’s early light, Nelson found the undamaged phone, plucked it out and handed it to the student, who was waiting there at 6:30 AM. Thanks Lorcan, Desi and Nelson!

 

Harvard Seizes 3rd Place in "GameDay Challenge"

Out of the 75 campuses competing in the EPA WasteWise effort to reduce football games and related events, Harvard took third place in Organics Recovery (Yale was 19th). This helped pull our diversion rate to 7th place with 71% recovered for recycling or composting. See all the results here:

http://www.epa.gov/wastes/partnerships/wastewise/challenge/gameday/results.htm

 

"Stuff by the Yard" at Peabody Museum

Harvard Recycling’s Rob Gogan spoke about Harvard's recycling, surplus and trash, Thursday, January 26, 2011, for the Peabody Museum’s "Trash Talk" series about the anthropology of waste.
See Harvard Gazette article here:
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/01/no-time-to-waste/?fb_ref=sidebar
Peabody Museum write-up here:
http://www.peabody.harvard.edu/node/755
Audio MP3 here:
http://www.peabody.harvard.edu/node/638/#lectures
Upcoming "Trash Talk" lectures (unless noted, all free and open to the public at Geological Lecture Hall, 26 Oxford Street, starting at 6 PM): February 9, "Terrible and Charismatic Waste: A Close Reading of Ocean Plastics, Max Liboiron, ABD, Department of Media, Culture and Communication, New York University; Regional Co-Director of the Plastic Pollution Coalition; February 29, “Waste Ecologies," Pierre Belanger, Associate Professor, Landscape Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design; April 5, Film showing, "Garbage City and the Informal Economy," co-sponsored by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Semitic Museum, Harvard University; April 19, "Tornadoes, Twin Towers and Hurricanes: 20 Years of Urban Disaster Clean-up," Ben R. Turner, President, and Patrick McMullen, Executive VP, CFO & Treasurer, Phillips and Jordan, Inc.; April 21, 1 pm - 4 pm, "Earth Day Recycling Fun" (Special Off-Site Workshop) Rob Gogan, Manager of Harvard Recycling Services (free, but advance registration required); Saturday April 21 and Tuesday April 24-Saturday April 28, Noon-4 pm, "Trash Tales Discovery Room Hands-on Workshop" (Free with Peabody Museum Registration); "Transforming Trash to Treasure: Cleaning Artifacts from Harvard Yard," 5-19-12 from 12 noon – 4 PM. For more information about all "Drop-in Family Events" and to register for the Earth Day Recycling Fun Workshop, please contact pmae-ed@fas.harvard.edu or call 617-495-3216.

 

FreeCycles "Better than Christmas!"

FreeCycles are springing up across campus. Holyoke Center held its third bi-monthly event 1-20-12 and will run another at the Harvard Information Center in HOLYOKE ARCADE FROM 11 AM – 2 PM ON FREECYCLE FRIDAY, 3-16-12. Save all those usable goods you don’t want anymore, but want to make available to members of the Harvard community. Come "shop" from what others are offering and meet your colleagues from other offices! Thanks to FreeCycle volunteers Vin Devadanum, Berley McKenna, Devorah Sperling, Kristine Fraser and Leon Welch. Most popular items: small working electronics, desk lamps, radios, markers, toys, staplers, holiday lights, house plants, manila folders, inkjets, drawer organizers, binder clips, door-mounted mail holders, electric pencil sharpeners, greeting cards, current books and magazines, adding machines, scissors, paper cutters and more! January’s FreeCycle featured a new service whereby one Holyoke occupant requested some office chairs, which Harvard Recycling took from our surplus inventory and brought with the other swappables. Recipients had only to ride the elevator downstairs to pick up four Harvard-style wooden chairs! NOVEMBER SUPER-FREECYCLE combined goods from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Law School, and our host, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, led by Kate Zirpilo-Flynn! Thanks Kate, Gosia Sklodowska of the FAS Green Program of the Office for Sustainability and Kate Cosgrove of the Sustainability Office at Harvard Law School. At least ten cubic yards of goods changed hands without leaving more behind than the same volume that was in the "seed hampers" we started with. Another FREECYCLE IS COMING 2-8-12 AT THE HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL, sponsored by the HKS Green Team. LAW SCHOOL FREECYCLES AGAIN 4-6-12. If you want to set up one of these fun, waste-preventing, money saving swap-fests, please contact us. Harvard Recycling will come early with a couple of hampers of goods for you to start with. Then you welcome your colleagues to drop-off and swap-off all the free goods! The typical FreeCycle requires a host committee to publicize, a central location, at least 100 visitors, four or five table tops, receptacles for recyclables and trash (mostly collapsed boxes and packages), and barrier-free truck access to drop off and pick up the rejects. Lunch time works best, as many people are out dining and doing errands then. Please let us know if you’d like to host one this Spring!

 

FAS 1414 Recycling Challenge

A new recycling contest will compare how well three FAS offices divert their recyclables from their trash. Brandon Geller of the Office for Sustainability is grading the recycling ofFAS Human Resources, led by Audrey Harmon; FAS Harvard University Information Technology, led by John Courville; and the FAS Financial Office, led by Elizabeth Whitley. Working with Marla King of FAS Physical Resources and Rob Gogan of Harvard Recycling, Brandon rounded up a random sample of trash from the three offices in January. Results of the audit showed that the baseline rate for the building’s trash is 36% recyclable, meaning that 36% by weight of the items discarded could have been recovered for SingleStream recycling. The most common recyclables, in order, were these:

1. Paper cups & lids and non-foam plastic cups & lids
2. Paper plates and deli-containers, clamshells etc
3. Office paper
4. Plastic bottles

The sample also produced an enormous amount of wet coffee grounds, which are eminently compostable along with filter paper/pod wrappers. Someday soon, we will be able to compost these on campus! Keep in touch for details. These recyclables in 1414’s trash were pretty much the same as what we found in the CGIS Waste Audit sample, which Matt Stec and Joel Day looked through. In fact, exactly 36% of the trash bags we sampled there could have been recycled too. If you’d like to do a Building Waste Audit to find out how much more you and your colleagues could recycle, please let us know!

 

Donations Help Harvard’s Needy Neighbors

Is your office moving soon? Label up a "Reusables for Donation" box! If you have a hamper's worth, we'll lend you a big six-wheeled hamper to any building in our service area. If you have more than a hamper's worth, or items too big for one person to carry, we can accept from movers all surplus furniture, supplies and equipment any weekday from 8 - 4 PM. Please call or email us to let us know your movers will be coming. We will do our best to find good homes for everything we get. Reuse is better than recycling! RECENT BENEFICIARIES include Leominster Public Schools (thanks, Mike Goodwin, Jeffrey Maura and Linda Kuzinski of the Graduate School of Education!), Togo West Africa Project (thanks, Stephen Hyde of Programs in Professional Education!), Ecole Polytechnique of Port au Prince, Haiti (thanks, Amy Lester of Currier Kitchen of Harvard Dining Service!), Cambridge Police and MIT Police (Thanks, Stephen Coughlin of Harvard Business School!). Last but not least, Ecole Polytechnique will also be receiving over 1,000 lovely pieces of white china with (somewhat faded) gold trim from the Faculty Club (thanks, Bob Leandro and Berit Fehrenbach of Northwest Labs Café!). Berit has asked that the china be sent to Haiti in memory of Antonia Joachim. According to Berit, "Antonia was a long time employee of Dining Services who left an indelible mark on many people at HUDS. She passed away late last year and had a personal connection with Haiti."

 

Per-plate waste shrinks to lowest on record
by David Davidson

For the first time in recent memory, the average annual weight of food waste in each dining hall has dipped below 200,000 pounds, marking a 56.5 percent decrease in wasted food since spring 2005. This semester’s [FAS Resource Efficiency Program-HUDS Food Literacy Program] food waste audit - which was conducted during the week of October 3 through 7 - also showed a drop of 21.6% drop in food waste since last spring. This figure represents a one-semester dip of more than 50,000 annual pounds per dining hall…

During the most recent audit week, students left an average of 1.22 ounces of food waste on their plates. Winthrop residents took the prize for the lowest per-person waste, leaving an average of only 1.07 ounces of food each. Currier residents took a close second place, wasting just 1.09 average ounces of food.
[Editor’s note: When the first Food Waste Audits occurred in 2005, average plate food waste was over five ounces. Thanks REPs and members of the "Clean Plate Club!"]

We were also pleased to notice that students became more mindful of food waste as the audit week progressed. Nearly consistently across the board, students wasted less food each successive day, which indicated to us that students responded to reminders about the food audit by consciously reducing the amount of food they put on their plates…

To dispose of the food waste that does inevitably accumulate, HUDS composts in 12 of 13 dining halls. Annually, we compost 583 tons of waste. This is one of our many initiatives to reduce our environmental impact.

To cut back on food waste at your next meal, try to serve yourself small portions during your first trip to the serving stations. Remember, you can always go back for second helpings if you’re hungry for more food.

Thank you for continuing to be mindful of your food waste!
[NOTE: This story is re-posted from a recent HUHDS blog post by David P. Davidson, Managing Director of Harvard Dining Services]

Valentine’s Day Cosmetics Drive

The eleventh annual Valentine's Day Cosmetics Drive kicked off on 1-30-12! This tradition started when Jayne Loader, former Co-Master of Quincy House, asked us to take surplus cosmetics to a homeless shelter. Jayne had done this for Valentine’s Day when she lived in Texas. Please let us know if you'd like to be a "Cosmetics Cupid" to help the ladies of the Cambridge Family Shelter at the YWCA get deeply-appreciated nail polish, make-up and toiletries. We have already delivered 65 collection boxes! Can we beat the record of 2009, when we sent 2,000 pounds over for the party? Harvard FMO Recycling is teaming up with the OFS Resource Efficiency Program in this effort. We will be collecting Friday morning, 2-10-12. Please also let us know if you have experience and interest in helping conduct the party. Manicurists, cosmeticians and hair stylists are especially welcome!

Cut Delivery of Unwanted Telephone Directories

UNWANTED PHONE BOOKS continue to be delivered to our campus. We can recycle them once out of their plastic wrappers. It’s better not to include the advertisement magnets attached to some of the directories, but they won’t spoil the recycling load. Better than recycling is reduction. If you don't wish to receive any phone books next year, please call the Directory Opt Out Phone Number: 1-888-888-8448
or visit http://my.supermedia.com/directoryoptout/.
For Yellow Book USA, Inc., please call 1-800 YBYELLOW or visit
http://recycleyellowbook.com/opt-out-of-phonebook-delivery/

Catalog Choice Trims Unwanted Mail

Thanks to Ann Swartzell of Harvard College Library for letting us know about a new service from Catalog Choice. "I have been a 'patron' and used their on line resource to work on eliminating some unwanted mail for several years." Read the email from Catalog Choice announcing their new "MailStop Envelope."

Click here to learn more: https://www.catalogchoice.org/mailstop/envelope

CAMPUS NATURE WATCH

• WILD TURKEYS enjoy snow-free winter (so far) on Putnam Street across from Peabody Terrace.





• RED-TAILED HAWKS take advantage of snow-free winter to hunt all over campus:
  • At RADCLIFFE QUAD, a red-tailed captures an Eastern Cottontail rabbit at Currier House. See Vivian B. Ling ’14’s spectacular photos below from the Harvard Crimson, showing hawk’s ruddy-brown tail:
    http://www.thecrimson.com/series/spotted/article/2011/11/15/animals-hawks-harvard-campus/
    
    
  • … At the BUSINESS SCHOOL, a red-tailed hawk swoops down to snatch a squirrel from the ground next to Baker Library and Bloomberg Center and flies up to a nearby tree branch to consume his breakfast. Another red-tailed hawk nearby [a grown fledgling hoping for a hand-out from its parent?] flies to the same branch a few feet away from the first hawk and observes with great interest. The first hawk turns his back and does not offer to share
    
    
  • … In HARVARD YARD, a red-tailed hawk on the chimney of Straus dines on prey. [Perhaps the same?] hawk catches a gray squirrel and flies to the roof of Widener Library, hotly pursued by its squawking sibling. The victor boldly mantles its prey under its wings without any intention of sharing and finally flies away between Sever and Emerson to an unseen spot to feed in peace while the imploring one remains on Widener's roof.
    
    
  • … At the LAW SCHOOL’s brand new Wasserstein Hall, Caspersen Student Center, Clinical Wing, a red tailed hawk perches on the corner of the roof, staying for at least 20 minutes with the wind ruffling its feathers while scanning the landscape.
    
    
• In the unusual quiet and peace of the tourist-free Yard [during Occupy Harvard closure], handsome Male HOUSE FINCHES vie in their brilliant raspberry feathers with each other for the choice deep red crab apples on the roof of Pusey Library opposite Widener.
  
  
• Quadlings debate what to do about gosling: Harvard Crimson reports WHITE GOOSE waddling around Quad grass near Pforzheimer Dining Hall, prompting debate about how or whether to help it: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/11/5/pfoho-goose-outside-guard/
  
  
• BLUEJAY shrieking in the crab apples behind Loeb House on the Pusey roof is joined by a MOCKINGBIRD.
  
  
• On the sunny side of Loeb House, three dark red ROSES defy the season and two large apricot-colored roses and purple lavender compete for attention to their right.
  
  
• Abundant CRAB APPLES at the corner of 1746 Cambridge St. across Prescott St. from CGIS-South attract a Mockingbird, which perches with HOUSE SPARROWS gleefully feasting among the abundance.
  
  
• ACORNS CRASH as region's oaks yield a tiny fraction of the 2009 and 2010 nut drops. By some estimates, 2011's autumn acorn drop was 1/500th of previous years. See thoughtful blog by Paul Roberts of the Arlington Birds group on what this will mean to campus's booming population of prey (squirrels and rabbits) and predators (red tailed hawks). http://groups.yahoo.com/group/arlingtonbirds/message/9482
  
  
• DAFFODILS EMERGE (prematurely?) in warm winter in front of 175 North Harvard Street.
  
  

Thanks to Campus Nature Watchers Erika McCaffrey, Sonia Ketchian, Vivian Ling, Melissa Smith and Julie Zauzmer!

 

Jesus told his disciples, "Now gather the leftovers, so that nothing is wasted."

The Bible, John 6:12

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