All you have to do to help HMS and HSDM meet one of this year’s sustainability goals (and save money) is to recycle more stuff and recycle it correctly so it stays out of the trash stream. How easy is that?
It’s easier than reducing HMS’s greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent below 2006 levels. We have until 2016 for that goal, Harvard President Drew Faust announced in July.
Here are 25 facts about you and your recyclables to help your sustainability habits spread as fast as the “25 Facts” went from cool thing to Internet phenomenon to mainstream media fodder.
1. All for one and one for all. In November, HMS went to SingleStream recycling. This means you can toss in the same recycling bin all mixed paper, cardboard, rigid plastics (numbers 1–7), glass and aluminum cans.
2. Playing catch-up. HMS recycles less than half of its trash, 46 percent last year compared to more than half on Harvard’s Cambridge campus.
3. Let$ go green. Per ton, recycling costs only half the disposal fees of trash. In a better economy, it saves even more money.
4. One bad apple. Even if it pains you, put trash in the trash bin, not the recycling bin. Recycling that is contaminated with trash becomes trash. It is shunned by the recycling pick-up service and left for the trash haulers. Plus, the recyclers now charge an extra fee for contaminated recycling that slips through to the warehouse.
5. These you can recycle:
6. YES on Post-It and other sticky notes
7. YES on paper clips and staples
8. YES on envelopes with clear plastic windows
9. YES on milk cartons and coffee cup lids
10. Don’t even think about putting these in the recycling bin:
11. NO food (shake out food into the trash)
12. NO liquids (pour them out in the sink)
13. NO plastic utensils
14. NO napkins or paper towels
15. NO coffee cups (how about using your own washable mug?)
16. NO pizza boxes (even clean or unused ones)
17. NO tissues (hankie anyone?)
18. NO Styrofoam or unnumbered plastic
19. NO laminated items
20. Who can be expected to remember all this? Print signs for your large trash and recycling containers.
21. Spread the good word. Print these postcards as friendly reminders for your coworkers from the same website.
22. A sidecar named inspire. For a short time, you can still exchange your desk-side trash can for a blue recycling bin adorned with smaller black trash “sidecars.” E-mail HMS’s own sustainability guru: claire_berezowitz@harvard.edu.
23. Stickers too. Claire Berezowitz, the Longwood sustainability coordinator, has stickers with all that small print, above, to update your recycling container’s old-sticker instructions.
24. But wait, there’s more. For details about lab stuff (YES on pipette boxes and aluminum foil; NO to pipette tips) and other recyclables, visit this website.
25. The mantra. Remember that reduce and reuse come first. Then recycle like you mean it.
