BEIRUT — Rolling to a stop on his overladen scooter, Shaher Hassan awkwardly balanced five bags and a carton full of cans, plastic bottles and other recyclables mined from the trash that day.
In an unpaved alleyway in Lebanon's capital, he handed the load off to another young man, who took it inside the cramped apartment the two of them shared with five other people — one room for sleeping, the other for mounds of reclaimed refuse.
Hassan squatted and lit a cigarette, his eyes a bit red from a 6:30 a.m. wake-up. After eight hours of dumpster diving, his haul — which he would later take to collectors to export to Turkey or Egypt for processing — would make $10, maybe $15 if he was lucky.
