SURPLUS AVAILABLE

Please contact us for questions and pickup information.

OAK WARDROBES 72*28*60. Three doors, two sections, steel closet rods. High shelf in larger section. 20 wardrobes available.See photo.

LIBRARY SHELVING, 5,000 bookshelf feet. Solid wood cherry (?) end caps are 84" tall x 20" wide x 1/2 inch thick. There are 60 end caps and 30 rows. Each row is 28' long, made of eight (2') sections. So each 3' section has a base plate 36" x 20" x 3" tall, two 20" x 84" standards with holes for hanging shelves, and six shelves on each side that hang from the standards.

FOLDING COAT RACK ideal for venues hosting many visitors but without permanent space for coat racks.

COVERED GOLF CART, fully operational, some rust spots on body.See photo.

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.

STEREOSCOPIC MICROSCOPE, prefer old Leica or Wild, for Harvard Post-Doctoral Fellow. Please let us know if you have one to donate.

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.

Split compactor enables space-efficient containment of trash and recycling—especially cardboard--in limited loading dock space at 80 JFK Street.

SPLIT TRASH & RECYCLING COMPACTORS

Split trash & recycling compactors enable recycling as easily as trash disposal without the clutter of loose boxes or barrels at campus loading docks.  Since March, our trash vendor, Allied Waste Services, has installed the 42-cubic-yard machines at Harvard Law School’s Wasserstein Hall, Caspersen Student Center, Clinical Wing; Harvard Dining Service’s Culinary Support Group; Harvard Business School’s Kresge Hall; the Laboratory for Integrated Science and Engineering; and the OEB Glasshouse (serving Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard Divinity School and others).  Movable baffles inside the compactors divide the load as needed so that all sorted dry refuse can go inside.  The set-up is especially helpful in locations generating large amounts of cardboard boxes.

Harvard Law School’s new WCC building receptacles display clear recycling posters made of actual items stuck above the proper chute. Let us know if you’d like the templates for these signs, which HLS has generously sent to us.

 

ON-SITE PRE-COMPOSTER

On-site pre-composter, BioGreen 360, processes food waste from the Law School’s WCC building.  This cuts the volume of food scraps by 80%.  Casella Recycling installed the machine this September.  Mechanical agitation, optimization of heat and moisture, and proprietary microbes combine to produce an organic soil amendment high in nutrients which we hope can be used on campus.  The unit is designed to condense 1,000 pounds of food scraps to 200 pounds of 90% finished compost.  Because of this densification, fewer trucks will need to visit the WCC dock.

 

 “GREENBEAN” REVERSE VENDING MACHINE

 “GREENBEAN” REVERSE VENDING MACHINE redeems nickel deposit bottles and cans in the Harvard Science Center basement next to the vending machines.  Also installed this month, the greenbean Machine will take any redeemable can or bottle and send a credit via PayPal to any registered user or their chosen Phillips Brooks House Association (or other) charity.  We hope this machine will help recover more of the party-related beverage containers which often don’t get recycled.    

 

HARVARD STUDENTS TRY FOR BOX FORT RECORD

Last year, Laura D’Asaro ’13 of Kirkland House set the world record for Box Fort construction.  Read more here http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/9/5/dasaro-box-house-record/ ).  Since then, Brigham Young University and then University of Nevada-Las Vegas broke our record.  We encourage Harvard students to donate all larger boxes to help win back the title.  If you want to help build or just watch the fun, come to the MAC Quad at Gore Hall, 91 Mill Street this Sunday, 9-9-12 from 10 AM – 3 PM.  After de-construction, volunteers from the Environmental Action Committee will flatten and recover the boxes for sale at this May’s Move-out.  Last spring, the EAC raised over $1,000 through sales of used boxes.  Needless to say, they also prevented the need to manufacture new ones and saved their peers from paying prices up to five times higher.

 

“STUFF SALE” CONTINUES

Harvard Habitat for Humanity’s “STUFF SALE” crew teamed up with the Summer School Move-in events this June, selling over $8,000 worth of fans, lamps, clocks, mirrors and other goods to arriving students.  All sales benefit Harvard Habitat for Humanity and its mission to help build housing for the needy.  At the Freshmen Move-in sales, HHH sold many of these same goods a second time after Harvard Recycling recovered them from dormitory Donation Stations.  Captain Alex Stein is on track to match or exceed previous year’s sales despite having to sell in a new location in Littauer Circle due to the Science Center Overpass construction.  The Stuff Sale’s final two days are this Saturday and Sunday, September 8th and 9th from 9 AM – 5 PM.  Come visit to shop and help a worthy charity!  We still have plenty of small dorm goods, school supplies and furniture.
 

HARVARD THINKS GREEN 2

Join your colleagues for “Harvard Thinks Green 2” on Tuesday, September 18th at 7 pm in Sanders Theatre.  You’ll have the opportunity to hear six all-star Harvard faculty presenting their big green ideas from business, government, science, energy, health, and planning perspectives.  Their research and teaching, much of which is happening right here at Harvard, will inspire all of us.

You are also invited to a special reception immediately before the event from 5:30 pm-6:30 pm, including Environmental Trivia at the Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub.  The first 100 people to register for trivia receive 1 free drink ticket!  Refreshments will be served.  See you there!

 

START A TOOL LIBRARY

Start a tool library for your colleagues on campus or your neighborhood at home!  See this Center for a New American Dream webinar here.

On behalf of the RePaper Project, Susan Kinsella explains why we still need to specify recycled content when we buy paper:  For instance, though growing trees for paper fiber seems renewable as trees can be re-planted, this practice leads to forest mono-cultures devoid of biodiversity, wildlife habitat and topsoil.  Read more here.

 

CAMPUS NATURE WATCH

• Eastern Cottontail Rabbit tamely nibbles white clover blooming in Radcliffe Yard between Schlesinger and Buckingham, seemingly unfazed by landscape construction. Photo by Sara Hutcheon


• GRAY SQUIRRELS high in WHITE OAK branches nibble edges off acorn cupules, dropping the abundant nuts onto Yardlings sitting in Common Space chairs below. Later, squirrels patrol the lawn to retrieve their harvest.


• EASTERN COTTONTAIL RABBIT feeds in front of Loeb House. Just-weaned baby rabbit hops along the side of Loeb House near Pusey… Adult rabbit runs across the bottom steps of the stairs between Houghton and Lamont.


• RED-TAILED HAWK, screeching every few seconds, makes a long glide from Harvard Innovation Laboratory to Harvard Stadium, maintaining from the start enough height to clear by inches the top wall next to the flagpole.


• High above Memorial Church several black, very long-winged birds [turkey vultures?] circle several times before flying off.


• Immature WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH lands in a tall AMERICAN ELM tree on the Emerson side of Sever and climbs up and out of sight. [The same?] young nuthatch calls in the elm in front of Widener. Nuthatch calling in an oak in front of Weld Hall flies away to another oak in front of University Hall. [The same?] nuthatch moves along the bark of an American elm in front of Widener.


• MOCKINGBIRD flies across Tercentenary Theater in front of Widener.


• BLUE JAY shrieks near the Fogg.


• DOWNY WOODPECKER, vocalizing on the wing, flies into a tree near Widener.


• MALE HOUSE FINCH sings melodiously in a tree in front of Mt. Auburn Hospital.


• GRACKLE tries to move down the open middle of Pusey (to raid nest?) but an angry ROBIN loudly chases him away.


• At Harvard Faculty Club, transparent DRAGONFLY stays perched on the long leaf of a vine, while large red roses bloom behind the new wooden bench that replaced the fountain. The chef has four big tomato plants and many herbs among the traditional flowers. Painted Lady Butterfly visits there often.


• PAINTED LADY butterfly flies to some plants at Pusey and stays long enough to be admired.


• MONARCH butterfly flits among the flowers in front of Loeb House. Many kinds of bees and small insects feed on nectar from flowers in front of Loeb House.


• A small bright yellow butterfly flew across Quincy St. to the Fogg.


• Two TIGER SWALLOWTAIL butterflies flit from in front of Loeb House to its side.

Thanks to Campus Nature Watchers Sarah Hutcheon, Sonia Ketchian, Scott McDonald!

 

"To minimize the amount of waste we generate and wring the most value out of the trash we create requires a mix of smart science, practical policy, and appropriate technology. It's not enough to understand chemistry and materials science, for instance, because psychology, politics, and economics also play a big role in how we come to terms with our waste."

"More Treasure Than Trash", by Nick Wigginton, Jake Yeston, and David Malakoff, Science, 10 August 2012

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