Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

New survey shows support for pilot recycling program in Henderson

Recycle Bins

Recycling bins are seen on a curb in Anthem on Tuesday, July 26, 2011.

Recycling in Henderson

  • What: Henderson City Council meeting, public hearing on residential waste removal pilot program
  • When: 7 to 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 6
  • Where: Council Chambers, 240 Water St., Henderson

In advance of Tuesday’s Henderson City Council meeting, when the fate of a pilot recycling program could be decided, Republic Services has released survey results showing strong support for the new residential waste collection regimen.

In fall 2010 more than a quarter of the households in Henderson, 25,000, were placed in the pilot program, which replaced three plastic bins for recycling different materials with one large bin for all recyclables. In the pilot program, trash and recycling are picked up once a week; in the previous system trash was picked up twice a week and recycling once every other week.

In February, Republic Services commissioned a survey by Horizon Business Solutions of households in the pilot program. More than 6,000 households responded.

The results showed approximately 88 percent of respondents said they recycled more under the new program, and 95 percent said the single bin was easier to use than the trio of receptacles previously used. Additionally, 86 percent said their neighborhoods were cleaner on trash day than under the old system, and nearly 70 percent of respondents said they were “extremely satisfied” with the program.

Bob Coyle, Republic Services vice president of government affairs, said the company paid for its own survey because it wanted to provide the city with more information and wanted a survey with a larger sample size than the city-commissioned survey earlier in the year that had a tenth of the respondents.

Coyle said another survey from January showed that about 6 percent of all residential waste was recycled under the old program and the participants in the new program were recycling about 29 percent of their waste.

Bob Coyle, vice president of public affairs and government relations at Republic Services, says the company is seeing good results in its pilot program of commingled recyclables.

Bob Coyle, vice president of public affairs and government relations at Republic Services, says the company is seeing good results in its pilot program of commingled recyclables.

“Before they basically had three 12-gallon milk crates for recycling that were collected every other week,” Coyle said. “With the largest cart in the pilot program at 96 gallons, which is collected once a week, capacity is greatly increased. Most single-family homes use the 96-gallon cart, but we do offer a choice, and customers can get 65- or 35-gallon carts if they don’t need that much.”

At Tuesday’s council meeting, the Citizen Advisory Committee is scheduled to present a report and recommendation on the program. The council will take public comments and could decide whether to expand the program citywide.

In January the city received the results of a survey it commissioned from the Cannon Survey Center at UNLV, and the results were similar.

In that survey, 74 percent of the 604 respondents said they recycled more under the new program, 85 percent were satisfied with the trash service and 91 percent expressed satisfaction with the recycling service. While 35 percent of respondents said they noticed an additional odor with one-day-a-week trash collection, 86 percent said the odor would not affect their desire to participate in the program.

City Councilwoman Debra March has been participating in the program and says she thinks it works well, but she is keeping an open mind ahead of the public hearing.

“The surveys have shown a high satisfaction rate among those participating in (the pilot program),” March said. “I think we need to look at what we are putting into landfill every day, and studies have shown increased recycling under the program. I certainly think I’m leaning in the direction that this program makes sense, but I want to hear what the public has to say.”

Still, some Henderson residents say not enough information has been made available and are wary of single-stream recycling.

Sun City Anthem resident Nelson Orth said his neighborhood was not part of the pilot program but that he planned to raise concerns at Tuesday’s meeting.

“In Sun City Anthem we have desert landscapes and many senior citizens. We have widows in their 80s, and they cannot push trash carts over rocks to get down to the curbside. ... Storage is also a problem. Not everyone has the garage space for one or two big bins.”

Orth also said he was concerned about the smell from trash during the sweltering summer months if trash collection was reduced from two days to one day per week.

But, most of all, Orth said he wanted more information on cost and assurances that rates would not escalate.

Republic Service’s contract with the city, which runs through 2025, only allows for annual adjustments based on the consumer price index, and prices will not increase for customers because of the program, according to Coyle.

Under the proposal for the program, Republic Services would purchase new trucks with mechanical arms to lift the specialized waste bins.

“The truck will run on natural gas, and replacing one of our diesel trucks with one of the new ones is like taking 300 cars off the street (in terms of emissions),” Coyle said.

Henderson spokeswoman Kathleen Richards said the comments the city had received on the program had been “overwhelmingly positive and supportive.”

“People were finding that (the old recycling) bins were small, unwieldy and difficult to get to the curb. Because they didn’t have tops, when it was windy things would get blown everywhere,” Richards said. “It didn’t encourage people to recycle.”

If the council does approve the program, Republic Services would have to order new trucks and it would likely take until the end of 2013 for the program to be fully in place, Coyle said.

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy