Editorial: Failing the smell test

Sunday, Dec. 3, 2006 | 7:43 a.m.

After the Clark County Commission rejected an ill-conceived plan for changing local garbage collection, members of the group that recommended the plan decided their approach, rather than the plan, needed fixing.

According to a story in Thursday's Las Vegas Sun, members of the Southern Nevada Recycling Advisory Committee have said that Clark County commissioners lacked the proper perspective when they rejected a proposal that called for reducing garbage collection to once a week, instead of twice a week, and increasing recycling pickups to weekly, instead of every two weeks. The group said its plan would have helped improve the Las Vegas Valley's poor recycling record.

However, residents would have been forced to keep filled garbage cans sitting around for a week at a time. Quite literally, the plan stunk. And it didn't pass the political smell test either.

At the time the plan was crafted, the advisory group included public health officials and people from local governments, UNLV and, not surprisingly, Republic Services - a company that has a contract giving it a monopoly for garbage collection in Clark County until 2035. The real benefactor of the plan was Republic, which hoped to save money by reducing its garbage runs. Republic officials have since resigned from the advisory group, although they still go to the group's meetings in an advisory role.

Still, as the Sun's Tony Cook reported, the committee plans to launch a grass-roots campaign to garner public support for testing three more proposals - two of which are new and revolve around using one bin for recycling rather than three. The third proposal merely will put a new spin on the original plan that was rejected.

This group just doesn't get it. The failure isn't how the plans are presented to the public. It's the content. Republic Services has negotiated long-term contracts that make it the only game in town. It is Republic's responsibility to increase recycling without increasing our bills or reducing our services. Anything short of that is not acceptable.