Free Used Boxes!

Store Your Stuff Sustainably


Reuse old boxes to store your stuff for the summer!  Used (but clean!) corrugated cardboard boxes will be available at the donation site between the Hark and Story each day.  Brought to you by the HLS Green Living Program - enjoy!

Watcha Gonna Do With All That Junk??

Moving out?  Don't Throw It All Away!

Sell or donate your belongings.  It's easy:

SELL IT!

https://blogs.law.harvard.edu/furnituresales/

DONATE IT!

Donations will be distributed to local charities and animal shelters by

Harvard Habitat for Humanity and the HLS Student Animal Legal Defense Fund (SALDF)

From now through May 28th bring donations to bins between Hark and Story, in the Hark (near the ramp), in thePound basement mailroom, in the North common room,

or in the Hastings basement (under the stairs near the kitchen).

LINENS AND TOWELS (please place in SALDF’s boxes)

BOOKS

CLOTHES

SHOES (tied together)

OFFICE SUPPLIES

TOILETRIES & CLEANING SUPPLIES

FURNITURE & RUGS

MIRRORS

ATHLETIC EQUIPMENT

ROOM SUPPLIES (fans, crates, bulletin boards, blocks)

FOOD (non-perishable)

Donate almost anything in usable condition except for dishware and utensils “borrowed” from the Hark—please return these items!  If you would like a receipt for your donations, e-mail Timothy at kim.timothy.sj@gmail.com.

Benefiting charities include Habitat for Humanity, the Cambridge YWCA Family Shelter, Greater Boston Food Bank, Unite for Sight, Better World Books, Students United to Fight Hunger, and local animal shelters.

And don’t forget about HLS e-waste recycling:

Recycle batteries, cell phones, all cords & cables, chargers, CDs, DVDs, USB keys, CFLs (cushioned and sealed), and other small electronic waste in buckets in the Pound basement mailroom, Pound 3^rd floor, Langdell Circulation Desk, 125 Mt. Auburn lobby, Hauser basement Help Desk, or outside the Facilities Office on Holmes 1.  

Larger items such as printers, hard drives, computer monitors, etc, can be taken to the ITS Help Desk in the basement of Hauser; small e-waste items with sensitive stored data can also be dropped off to ITS for secure destruction and recycling.

Brought to you by the HLS Green Living Program and Harvard Recycling

QUESTIONS? Contact your Green Living Rep or cara_ferrentino@harvard.edu   

Apply to be a Green Living Representative!

Join a team of fellow HLS students working to engage dorm residents and the entire student community in Harvard’s Greenhouse Gas Commitment and Sustainability Principles.  Green Living Program Reps work through peer-to-peer education as well as collaboration with other campus groups and the HLS administration to encourage energy conservation, water conservation, recycling, and waste reduction.

Deadline to apply: noon on Wednesday, April 28 (early applications encouraged!)

Hours a week: 3 (on average)

Pay: 18$/hr

For more information, and to apply, visit http://green.harvard.edu/hls/green-living.  Send questions to HLS Sustainability Coordinator Cara Ferrentino (cara_ferrentino@harvard.edu).  

The Green Living Program is a partnership between the Law School and the Office for Sustainability.

CELEBRATE EARTH DAY

at the HLS Earth Day Fair!

Thursday, April 22

11:30am-1:30pm

Outside on the Hark Patio*

Food, vendors, games, prizes, information, and more!

With remarks from Dean Minow at 11:55am!

-          Browse booths from local/green businesses and food shops

-          Challenge a friend or co-worker to a recycling quiz—win a prize!

-          Swap an incandescent bulb for a 15w CFL for a desk lamp

-          Drop off batteries and other electronic waste for recycling

-          Learn about HLS environmental groups and programs

Sponsored by the HLS Green Living Program, with the HLS Green Team, Joint Council, ELS, ELR, SALDF, Harvard Office for Sustainability, Restaurant Associates & Facilities Management. 

With special guests: Harvest Co-op, Q’s Nuts and Christina’s Ice cream, The Danish Pastry House, Quad Bikes, Buffalo Exchange, Stonehearth Pizza, Jute and Jackfruit Eco-Clothing, Green Spot Studio Eco-Jewelry, and more!

*In case of rain, the Fair will relocate inside to the first floor of the Hark.

Going Gothic

Finding a New "Eco-Font"

Looking into ways to save money on toner cartridges, a University of Wisconsin professor suggested an "Ecofont" to his IT department. IT came up with an even easier solution—the commonly available Century Gothic font.  

The eco-font saves ink by filling each letter with tiny holes.  Century Gothic effectively removes even more ink.  Tiny changes in the amount of ink used to print each character adds up in the aggregate—whether that's your ink cartridge costs or Green Bay's nearly $100,000 in toner costs. Century Gothic uses 30 percent less ink in printing than the typical Arial setting, but there is a slight trade-off in paper use.


Find out more at NPR.  

Get Dirty: Part II

Harvard Garden Planting

What:   Official Launch of the new Harvard Edible Garden
When:   April 17, 2010
             Garden Work: 11-3pm
             Remarks and official opening: 1:30pm
Where: The Garden is located on the corner of Mt Auburn Street and Holyoke, in front of Lowell House
More info: http://green.harvard.edu/garden 


Students, Staff and Faculty have been busy planning a sustainable, edible garden on the intersection of Mt Auburn Street and Holyoke Place in Cambridge. The official opening day for the garden is April 17th, and we will celebrate with an inaugural community work day. 
Come starting at 11am to help move soil, fill our newly-built raised beds, and start some spring planting.  There will be an afternoon break for food and remarks at 1:30pm. Work will finish around 4 PM at the latest. Feel free to help out for all or part of the day.  ELS will meet at 12 noon in front of the Hark to walk over to the garden site!

Get Dirty: Part I

Waste Audit

The spring Green Living waste audit is coming up soon!  Last fall, your trusty Green Living Reps conducted a waste audit of residential trash (Ames, Dane, Shaw, Holmes, Hastings, North), and found that:

•  26% of our trash by weight could have been recycled or reused
• This is down since the first Green Living audit in Fall 2005, when 45% of the trash could have been recycled or reused.

Here’s how the audit worked: your custodians saved trash bags and labeled them with each dorm's name and date.  The Reps met up with your trash at a recycling warehouse in Allston, where we took everything out of bags and sorted it into recycling, food waste/compostables, reusable items that could have been donated, and residuals (actual trash).  Next, we weighed each of these components and put them in separate bins for processing.  It was an enlightening, if smelly, experience!  

Here are some of the recyclable/usable things we found in your trash:

Why is recycling important?

• Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild the entire commercial airline fleet every three months.
• Making cans from recycled aluminum saves 95% of the energy required to produce cans from virgin material.
• Every year enough paper is thrown away to make a 12’ wall from New York to California. 
• Glass can be reused an infinite number of times; over 41 billion glass containers are made each year.

For more fun facts about recycling, check this link.

For a reminder of what can be recycled at HLS, go to here. 

Reducing Food Waste!

According to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, an estimated 1,400 calories of food per person is wasted in the US every day. This turns into a pollution issue-- even though it's biodegradable, you've got to find someplace to put all that rotting food.

When your Green Living reps did our trash audit, we found LOTS of food that you threw away!

How can we reduce this amount?

Store your food properly!
Many items will last longer in the refrigerator or freezer.  Close bags and use twist-ties or clips to keep bugs out. 

Freeze!
Perishable items last longer in the freezer.  Most people know you can freeze meat and fish.  But you can also prolong the life of bread, butter, cheese, tomatoes, bananas, and more! Check the full list at http://frugalliving.about.com/od/foodsavings/tp/I_Can_Freeze_That.htm

Buy only what you need!
This can be difficult if you're shopping for one.  Stores with bulk sections, like Harvest Co-op in Central Square, allow you to purchase only what you need.  In the produce aisle, look for by-weight instead of large packages-- for example, buy only a few apples instead of the tote bag.

Plan your meals!
This is difficult because it requires some foresight, but it can save you money and time in the end.  There may be several ways you can use one item so you won't get bored but you'll still make it through the entire package. For example, carrots could be carrot sticks, soup ingredients, part of a stir-fry, a salad ingredient, or a side dish.

Share!
One of the benefits of living in a dorm is that there are always people around willing to eat extra food.  But this might take a little bit of planning to ensure you share your food BEFORE it gets old.  You could also shop with friends and split groceries, or cook meals together where everyone contributes a few ingredients or a dish. You can also Iron-Chef your leftovers: http://lifehacker.com/5511821/iron-chef-your-leftovers-and-stop-throwing-away-perfectly-good-food  or use this site, which helps you find meals using the ingredients you already have: http://bigoven.com/leftoverwizard2.aspx

Barter, trade, optimize social value!
Talk to your neighbors and see if they have any food they can trade-- if you want salad but have lots of greens, for example, you could trade half a lettuce for a cucumber.  Pareto will be happy, and so will you. 

Compost!
Sometimes, despite your best intentions, you end up with a fuzzy cheese or dead banana.  Rather than throw it away, take it to the Hark dish return and they'll compost it for you.

For more info, check out: http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/

Down:2:Earth

Boston's Green Living Festival



What: Down:2:Earth (D2E) - Boston's third annual Green Living Festival
When:  April 9, 2010 (All day) - April 11, 2010 (All day)
Where: Hynes Convention Center 900 Boylston St. Boston, MA
Details: D2E is a weekend long event that showcases the best in eco-friendly products and sampled by the companies themselves in one location.  Exhibitors include Boston Bikes, snackTAXI, Clif Bar, and Green City Growers.  Find out more at http://www.d2eboston.com/ , or email miriam@d2eboston.com with questions.