Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Lawmakers may target recycling next session

Southern Nevada's garbage contractor, already a lightning rod for criticism after a widely unpopular proposal to increase the area's notoriously low recycling rate, may be a target in the 2007 Legislative session.

Assemblyman Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas, said Monday that he wants to introduce legislation requiring apartment, condominium complexes and government offices to provide ways for residents and employees to recycle.

Republic Services, the county's trash collector, now offers voluntary recycling every other week to residents in single-family homes but provides no such service to those living or working in multi-family dwellings.

The company has come under fire after outlining a controversial plan that would increase Nevada's low recycling rate at the expense of its twice-a-week trash collection.

Mandendo said a bill is unlikely to surface this year, although the item will be at the top of his list in the 2007 session.

Government housing and apartment complexes in Manendo's district used to offer recycling but no longer do, he said.

"They pulled it and I don't know why because it was being used," Manendo said.

Bob Coyle, Republic's area president for Southern Nevada, said apartment owners have shied away from adding recycling bins at complexes throughout the area because they would take space from the large, communal Dumpsters residents need to hold their trash.

A law requiring recycling containers to be placed inside the sprawling complexes could present the owners with a logistical challenge, he said.

The company, which will hold Southern Nevada's sole trash collection contract until 2035, is already under pressure from state and county officials to reduce the amount of trash that makes it to landfills. Nevada now recycles about 10 percent of its garbage, far short of the 25 percent goal set in 1996 and lower than the current 30 percent national average.

Coyle said he supports increasing recycling, although the company has focused its energy on stepping up its program in single-family neighborhoods.

"Anything that helps us encourage recycling I'm 100 percent supportive of," Coyle said. "But the first point is space and then the second is, if they make space available, will the residents make sure they don't throw their trash in the recycling bin? The real question is, how are the apartment owners going to react?"

Under the existing rules, individuals aren't required to recycle, Manendo said, even in neighborhoods where it is provided. Manendo said the legislation would not require residents to recycle, instead requiring the complexes to make it available.

A lack of recycling has left environmentally minded apartment and condo-dwellers forced to lug their materials to neighborhoods that do recycle, he said. Manendo said he takes his recycling from his home to his mother or sister's houses.

It's a step most people are unwilling to take, he said.

Roma Haynes, who as the county's franchise director oversees Republic's contract, said she had not heard of the potential legislation but said its effect could vary depending on what it required.

Most challenging could be legislation that requires increased service with no increase in service costs. The company had already proposed increasing recycling from twice a month to once a week, reducing trash pick-up from twice to once weekly with no change in the $11.33-a-month bill customers receive. Company officials, seemingly stung by a public outcry against the weakened trash pick-up, have begun retooling the changes.

Teamsters Local 631 represents workers at Republic. Drivers, who make up the bulk of the company's workers, earn $22.67 an hour, which is expected to increase to $23.94 when the contract ends in June 2007. Operators earn $23.38 an hour while mechanics earn $23.57 an hour.

"It would all depend on the bill," she said. "If there's a mandate with no funds, I don't know how they would handle that."

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