recycling bin

Earlier this week, Ethan and I were stuffing a few wine bottles and water bottles into the recycling bins. A young guy (high school aged?) passed us and said, “Good job!” and pumped his fist in the air. He seemed genuinely pleased. Normally, when we are trying to perform this civic duty, people will slow down in cars or look on in wonder. I’m not sure if they have just never seen anyone use them, or if they actually are not clear on the purpose of such bins. I’ve never seen anyone else put anything into them or take anything out, but they do fill up, so we are not the only ones giving the recycling thing a shot.

This is all that I have found about Sukleen’ s recycling program, so I have no idea how successful it is. Sukleen is the garbage collection company that serves Lebanon since the mid-90s. There are dumpsters all around where you are supposed to put your trash if your building doesn’t take care of it for you. Our friend, Andre, told us that before the dumpsters were there, people just threw the trash in the street, sans garbage bags. Anyhow, the Sukleen employees, who are mostly immigrants, always seem to be working pretty hard, and the streets and sidewalks stay pretty clean. I would be curious to know whether or not Sukleen is a good employer, though I suspect not.