This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Lauren Barros is nothing if not persistent.

The Salt Lake City family law attorney is environmentally conscientious and a staunch recycling advocate.

So, two years ago, she called and emailed Einstein Bros Bagels to request a recycling bin for the restaurant at 3923 S. Wasatch Blvd. that she has been patronizing for more than a decade.

Her efforts paid off when the shop added a blue recycling container.

But this spring, Barros noticed the containers were gone. When she asked the manager about it, she was told the bins had been used as a second trash container and they were not recycling.

Barros contacted customer service several times over the telephone and received an email last month from the director of operations at Einstein Noah Restaurant Group Inc., informing her the company is doing a site survey to see if it has the space for a recycling bin at that store.

"If the space is available," the email said, "a recycling dumpster will be added along with interior trash cans to support the effort."

No recycling bins have appeared, but earlier this month the director of operations sent another email, explaining that the company's waste-disposal vendor, National Waste Associates, did single-stream recycling in which it sorts the recycling items from the trash.

Barros, however, is thorough. She contacted National Waste Associates, whose representative reported the operations does waste disposal for Einstein but could not confirm whether single-stream recycling takes place at the eatery she frequents.

She persisted with calls and emails. On Nov. 20, her wish was granted.

Andrea Dalessio, account manager for National Waste Associates, wrote to Barros that a company investigation confirmed single-stream recycling occurs at that location.

"The trash is brought to a transfer station in Salt Lake and is dumped onto a conveyor," Dalessio explained. "The trash is then hand-sorted and all recyclable materials are picked out. Whatever trash is remaining is dumped off the end of the conveyor into the landfill."

Now Barros can sleep at night.

Speaking in tongues • I documented in my column Saturday the history of Sen. Orrin Hatch's stupid comments to conservative groups, the latest being his remark at the conservative Federalist Society that progressives are just "straight old dumbass liberals" and an utterance a few years ago to a college Republican group at Utah State University that President Barack Obama's health care law was a "dumbass program.

That prompted a reader versed in Mormon scripture to suggest to me that perhaps Hatch was speaking in code to like-minded Utah Republicans by channeling LDS prophecies.

In the faith's signature scripture, the Book of Mormon, Mosiah 12:5 states: "Yea, and I will cause that they shall have burdens lashed upon their backs; and they shall be driven before like a dumb ass."

And Mosiah 21:3: "Now they durst not slay them, because of the oath which their king had made unto Limhi; but they would smite them on their cheeks, and exercise authority over them; and began to put heavy burdens upon their backs, and drive them as they would a dumb ass."

You're in Utah • Remember, the state liquor stores will be closed Thursday for Thanksgiving. I felt a reminder is necessary, given all the disappointed Utahns who apparently didn't get that memo for Veterans Day.

The surveillance camera covering the parking lot of the Bountiful liquor store captured 165 cars pulling into the lot on Veterans Day before the drivers realized they couldn't get their booze. The camera caught several would-be customers walking up to the door, then, realizing their plight, shaking their heads and muttering something under their breath, presumably about Utah's liquor laws.