Harvard To Add 86 Recycling Bins

In a move proponents say will decrease the cost of disposing of Harvard’s waste, the Committee on House Life (CHL) approved an Undergraduate Council resolution to install an additional 86 recycling bins around campus yesterday.

According to the resolution, which was authored by Allison I. Rogers ’04, who is also a student representative on CHL, Harvard spends $80 per ton to ship its trash to a dump in South Carolina, while transporting recycling to the plant located in Boston costs Harvard only $20 per ton.

Matthew J. Glazer ’06, the chair of the council’s Student Advisory Committee, presented the resolution--—which passed unanimously at the council-—to the CHL.

“We send out trash to the Carolinas and it costs a lot of money,” Glazer said.

The council hopes that the additional recycling bins will reduce the waste which occurs when students do not wish to carry their garbage to their rooms to recycle.

“Whenever you’re in a class at Sever you see all the bottles thrown away and all the paper in the trash,” Rogers said.

According to this year’s waste audit by Harvard Recycling & Waste Management and the Resource Efficiency Program, 42 percent of the trash found in garbage bins across campus could have been recycled.

But the addition of 86 recycling bins, or about six per house, falls short of the council’s goal of pairing a recycling bin with each trash bin.

“The bill had said to put it next to every trash can, but that didn’t make economic sense,” Rogers said.

Rogers said that Harvard should set an example of ecological consciousness for other institutions.

“If you go to Brown University you’ll see that there are recycling bins next to all trash bins—why doesn’t Harvard have the same thing?” Rogers said.

The committee also discussed the progress of the implementation of Universal Keycard Access, heard a report from a subcommittee investigating the size of blocking groups and considered creating a task force to examine student space in the Houses.

Glazer said that the committee will likely create a task force to investigate the House space next semester, which has been an issue since randomization took effect.

“Before randomization the student community really revolved around the House, and now students have two communities-—the House and their extracurricular community,” Glazer said.

—Staff writer Joshua P. Rogers can be reached at jprogers@fas.harvard.edu.