I saw something amazing and disturbing this morning regarding the Raleigh Solid Waste recycling crew who serve my neighborhood.
Some background: When I bought my house and received my green recycling bin, it had two bungie cords that, when extened from opposite corners, were connected by a clever spring-loaded latch. The purpose of connected the cords, of course, was to keep light-weight articles from being blown from the bin by the wind.
The latch probably lasted a year or two before one of Raleigh's impatient recycling crews broke it.
I didn't trouble the city by requesting a new bin. I improvised. I took a long "twist-tie" and tied it first around just one bungie cord, leaving two long ends loose. In order to connect to the other cord, I just tied the long ends of the twist tie to the other cord. This worked for several years.
Then recently some utterly impatient Solid Waste employee broke the twist-tie. The next week they actually broke one of the bungie cords.
This morning, my recylcle bin was at the curb but lacked any ability to keep lighter items from blowing away. As a result, a few sheets of newpaper were blown from the container. They landed about two or three feet away from the recycling bin. TWO OR THREE FEET!
Those "dedicated" recyclers showed up and emptied the bin but inexcuseably left the blown papers in my yard. Folks, anyone who could see the bin HAD to see the wind-blown paper - they were that close. Leaving the paper was intentional.
Lawdy, would someone pay these folks some overtime? They go other-than-beyond, after all.
An exceedingly disgusted customer.
