Cabot House

Green Cleaning practices can improve indoor air quality and reduce
allergies. The Harvard custodial staff uses green cleaning products and practices to
protect your health and our environment and you can too! When cleaning your suite, please keep these in mind:

• Look for Green Seal certified carpet, floor or window care products
• Buy recycled content paper products
• Look for “Green Label” certified vacuum cleaners
• Use microfiber cleaning cloths
• Recycling

Harvard uses SingleStream Recycling — that means that all of our recycling goes into the same bin. 

Items to place in recycling:

• Paper products: Newspaper, magazines, white and colored paper, paperboard, corrugated cardboard, empty paper cups, and clean pizza boxes with no food in them.
• Plastics, glass and metal: Any plastic with recycling arrows on it (#1-7), empty detergent bottles, glass, metal and plastic bottles or cans without liquid.

Items NOT to be placed in recycling:

• Food or anything containing food, napkins, tissues or plastic bags.

The following items require special recycling steps:;

• Batteries, cell phones and Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs): placed in the battery buckets located on the walls of every trash and recycling room. CFLs should be inside a ziplock bag.
• Refrigerators, computers and other large electronics and appliances: Whether broken or working, take to the recycling room and tape a not on it that says “For Recycling”.

For details about e-waste, see http://green.harvard.edu/emails/greentip/2010/07/.

At the end of the year, there will be donation bins for unwanted clothing or other items. For further information about recycling, please go to http://www.uos.harvard.edu/fmo/recycling/

What is a CFL?
A Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb (CFL) is a fluorescent tube bent into a compact spiral that can fit within a conventional lightbulb socket. The cylindrical plastic base is the “ballast”, which converts the AC power used by conventional light bulbs to the high-voltage DC required by fluorescent lights. Wow — an entire fluorescent light system that you can hold in the palm of your hand!

Why does REP give away CFLs?
CFLs are much more energy efficient than conventional incandescent light bulbs. They convert a larger fraction of the energy they consume into light, meaning that a CFL can produce as much light as a conventional 60W bulb (~900 lumens) but use only a fraction of the energy (~15W). CFLs have a higher initial cost than incandescent light bulbs, which means that from the standpoint of pure personal economics, it makes the most sense for the average Kirklander (who doesn’t have to directly pay the electric bill) to buy the cheaper, less efficient incandescent bulb. However, it is better for Harvard’s budget and the environment if everyone uses CFLs. By buying CFLs for you, the University saves money and reduces its impact on the environment — an important step in its commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2016. In return, you get a free lightbulb that lasts 10 times longer than an incandescent bulb. It’s a good deal for everyone!

How do I dispose of CFLs properly?
All fluorescent light bulbs contain a small amount of mercury: the silvery, liquid-at-room-temperature, heavy metal that is hazardous to human health. After your CFL burns out (from an average of ~8000 hours of use), you must dispose of it as hazardous waste. In Kirkland, take the bulb to the hazardous waste receptacle by the G-entryway laundry room.

What happens if my CFL breaks?
If a CFL breaks, ventilate the room by opening a window. (Mercury within the bulb will evaporate into the air.) Clean up broken fragments with wet paper towels and seal the fragments in a plastic bag. Dispose of the bag as hazardous waste, as above. Wash your hands, too.

What is the difference between fluorescent and incandescent lights?
A conventional incandescent lightbulb produces light by the resistive heating of a thin filament at the center of the bulb. This filament heats up to the point that it glows by blackbody radiation, emitting a continuous spectrum of light. A fluorescent bulb produces light by exciting mercury atoms to emit ultraviolet light at specific frequencies. This light excites the white phosphor coating on the outside of the bulb, which then emits visible light at specific frequencies. Because fluorescent lights emit light only at specific frequencies, they cannot show colors “as true to life” as incandescent bulbs. As humans, we are used to viewing colors under sunlight, which is a blackbody source just like an incandescent bulb. We perceive colors because objects absorb and reflect specific frequencies of light. But if an object is illuminated by a fluorescent source, it doesn’t not have a full complement of colors to reflect back at your eyes and may seem abnormally colored. The good news is that CFLs are held to a higher standard than the long fluorescent light bulbs that might illuminate an office. The industry has been working to tune their phosphor coatings to make CFLs just as good as conventional light bulbs.

Still want to know more about your light sources?
Energy Savers: How Compact Fluorescents Compare with Incandescents
HowStuffWorks “How Fluorescent Lamps Work”
The Best Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs: PM Lab Test – Popular Mechanics