LEWISTON – Luke Coburn lifted the lid on a squat trash can on Montello Street and discovered a picked-over shrimp platter balanced precariously on top. Cocktail sauce still clung to its plastic center.

At the house next door, six clear bags that had been dragged to the curb were bursting with wrapping paper, boxes and bows. They lay next to a staggering pile of flattened cardboard.

Clearly, someone made out.

Maybe they’d even gone to the neighbor’s holiday fete.

“Quite a pile,” Coburn quipped, chucking bags in the hopper. So big that Kevin Corliss came out of the cab to give him a hand.

It’s the busiest garbage week of the year. From the thrill of Christmas, to the reality of the heap.

Pine Tree Waste’s Mechanic Falls division has contracts to pick up trash in Lewiston and Auburn, and on an average week five garbage trucks collect about 300 tons. Christmas week last year added 70 tons on top of that.

The day after the big holiday you expect lots of boxes, Corliss said. They don’t mash up real well in the back of the truck. He’s been a driver for six years. Coburn has been a slinger – the person who dangles off the back – since 1999.

They’ve been a team for the past year.

Coburn says he loves being outdoors. Even in rain that kept sopping his gloves on Tuesday. He changed them every half-hour, laying the wet gloves on the floor of the cab. Corliss keeps the cab Hades-hot to dry them out and drives with the windows down to make it almost bearable. That’s teamwork.

“It’s a change of scenery all the time,” said Coburn, 27. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist do to it, but you’ve got to keep your eyes open.”

Watch out for traffic. Watch out for flyaways. Aim for the way back of the hopper.

“The new guys come back covered” with muck, he said. “What are you going to do? Take it like a champion.”

Corliss, 36, used to be a long-haul trucker. He likes being home every night. There are some downsides: He got stabbed with a needle once picking up a trash bag. The homeowner was diabetic. He had to have his blood checked three times over the next six months, just to be safe.

Less dramatic: people in apartment buildings who drop their trash bags out the windows (the bags burst) and people who put loose pet hair and pet doo right in the can.

“They just pop it right in with no bag. When you dump it, ooh, right in your face. It just flies up; it’s not pretty,” Coburn said.

He can’t eat rice anymore. He sees too many maggots. That’s a hazard of the job, too.

The men agreed that winter is hardest for collecting with all the ice and mess underfoot, but summer can’t be beat for smell. The heat really gets it going. Corliss keeps a Summer Surf air freshener in the cab. That probably helps. A little.

This week they’ll put in an extra hour or two each day gathering trash in L-A.