Recycling in county falling short of goal

Art Nadler

Tuesday, June 22, 1999 | 11:42 a.m.

The Clark County Health District board will be asked Thursday to take an aggressive approach to promoting recycling throughout Southern Nevada or face the possibility of not achieving a level mandated by the Legislature.

Shane Martin, an environmental health specialist with the district, will present board members with a report showing recycled municipal solid waste dropped 18 percent in 1998, compared with the previous year.

The survey showed that one cause was due to an increase of waste disposed of in the county landfill run by Silver State Disposal Service. Another cause, the report showed, was that the market for recyclable materials fell in 1998.

Silver State officials were not available for comment this morning.

The Municipal Recycling and Waste Reduction Report was sent to 50 recycling centers, of which 47 were returned.

"Only four companies showed a small increase," Martin said. "The market dropped out for a lot of recyclable materials such as cardboard and steel."

Martin states in his report that he is hoping that board members will revise the solid waste codes, so there won't be many restrictions. If it doesn't, he said, it will be impossible to achieve the 25 percent recycling goal set by the Legislature.

The report is asking the board to:

* Mandate residential or commercial recycling participation.

* Establish bans on the disposal of yard waste, waste tires and construction materials in landfills.

* Provide curbside collection of yard waste for composting.

* Create monetary incentives for recycling.

* Establish recycling drop-off areas at disposal sites.

* Reduce regulatory restrictions for recycling.

The report showed that there were 297,064 tons of materials recycled in 1998, compared with 362,656 in 1997. In comparison, there were 2,220,500 tons dumped into the Apex landfill, which was a slight increase from 2,047,322 tons in 1997.

Overall, the report concluded that 11.8 percent of Clark County residents recycled in 1998, a drop from 15 percent in 1997.