Editorial: Garbage in, garbage out

Thursday, June 15, 2006 | 7:18 a.m.

Overflowing trash bins at apartment complexes and commercial centers are not an uncommon sight. Often the garbage has spilled out of the bins and the result is wind-borne litter of the most unhealthy kind. Unchecked, such conditions can grow into a problem that clearly should be addressed.

But there is a right way and a wrong way to go about correcting the problem. Republic Services, the company that has a virtual monopoly in the Las Vegas Valley on collecting trash, chose the wrong way.

About 18 months ago, coinciding with the arrival of Bob Coyle as area president of Republic Services, the company quietly began adding a $47.94 surcharge whenever a trash bin's contents rose noticeably higher than its top. Coyle last made news in April 2005, when he proposed reducing garbage collection from twice a week to once a week, in exchange for doubling recycling pickups. After a public outcry, he withdrew the proposal.

Now there is an outcry from property managers, who say Republic Services' independent action to enforce cleanliness is unfairly costing them thousands of dollars a year. They also say the policy is highly vulnerable to fraud.

Republic Services pays its garbage truck drivers $4 for every photo they take of an overfull bin, to justify the surcharge with documentation. Property managers say drivers are intentionally not emptying some of the bins, to ensure that they will be overflowing by the time of the next pickup.

Coyle says he does not know how much revenue is generated by the surcharges, or how much money his drivers make on photo fees. The point, he said, is to force property managers to provide appropriate trash-bin capacity for their customers, or to have them purchase extra trash pickups from the company. "It is a health and safety issue," he says.

Be that as it may, Coyle should not have unilaterally introduced a new policy that is not included in his company's contracts with governments and businesses in the Las Vegas Valley. When informed by this newspaper of the policy, the Clark County manager's office questioned the legality of the policy and announced an investigation.

We believe there should be a policy governing trash bins, but it should not be imposed in a vacuum by Republic Services. Local governments that grant the exclusive contracts to the company should be involved, as well as all affected property owners.