City of Las Vegas edges closer to once-a-week trash pickup

It may soon be time for Las Vegas city dwellers to say goodbye to twice-a-week trash pickup.

Waste-disposal company Republic Services of Southern Nevada has been negotiating with the staff at the city of Las Vegas for about a year in hopes of implementing single-stream recycling in exchange for a 15-year contract extension.

“Discussions to update the franchise agreement and the solid waste ordinance are ongoing and we expect to have an agenda item to the City Council before the end of the year,” city spokesman Jace Radke said.

Republic’s current contract with the city expires in 2021. North Las Vegas, Henderson and most of Clark County already have single-stream recycling, which entails once-a-week trash pickup, once-a-week recycling pickup, and bulky-item pickup once every other week. Las Vegas is the last municipality holding onto recycling sorting bins, twice-a-week trash pickup and every-other-week recycling pickup.

Las Vegas Councilman Bob Beers, who represents the city’s Ward 2, said broadening single-stream recycling service citywide in Las Vegas is an issue residents raise from time to time.

The negotiations have raised questions for skeptics about the effectiveness of the single-stream program and Republic’s ability to secure a long-term contract before the current one expires.

Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani said knowing what she knows now, she would caution City Council members to do their due diligence.

“I’m a supporter of recycling but they should not have taken people’s trash day away in order to be able to implement weekly (recycling),” Giunchigliani said. “They could have done it weekly, and then we could have them sit down and say, ‘OK let’s measure how much actual trash versus recycling is going in.’ Then, if you can prove to the customer that there is less trash, which would justify losing a day, then fine. But you don’t take something away that you had the benefit of for the past 30 years.”

Tim Oudman, market vice president of Republic Services, said service is not being cut, just rearranged. A truck is still driving by a home the same number of times during a two-week period, he said.

In response to customers who are unhappy with the trash pickup schedule that comes with single-stream recycling, Oudman said “the new program is why we’re seeing 400 percent increases in the effectiveness of the program.”

A review of the single-stream recycling program by an independent auditor of the county, Eide-Bailly, found that during a 12-week period, 8.85 more pounds of material were recycled per week on average for 11,862 homes serviced with the single-stream recycling program than with the program that uses red, white and blue bins.

Oudman declined to provide data on municipalities other than Henderson, but the Henderson data show that the single-stream program collected 25,900 tons worth of recyclable material in 2015 while Republic collected only 2,900 tons worth of recyclable material from the homes in Clark County that are still on the three-crate recycling program.

Even though Republic’s recycling rate has increased over the past three years, reports from the Southern Nevada Health District show the recycling rate in the county has decreased during that same period.

“Republic is only responsible for a certain amount (of material): residential and whatever contracts they have for commercial (waste). Then you have all of the other facilities that are pulling in numbers,” said Rachel Lewison, Southern Nevada’s recycling coordinator, adding that she thinks the single-stream recycling program is living up to its hype.

The reasons for a steady decline in the county’s overall recycling rate are unclear.

Giunchigliani said it might have something to with the self-reporting system.

“They all self-report (to the health district), so it’s whatever you want to put down,” she said. “It should not just be a self-reporting, unaudited system. Not just for Republic but for any recyclers.”

Giunchigliani said she encourages City Council members to conduct an audit of the program to be certain of its payoffs before effectively cutting trash service in half.

She also suggested opening the municipal solid waste contract for bid to allow other companies to compete.

Beers said waste pickup rates in Nevada are among the lowest in the Western United States, which he called a “compelling reason not to shop.”

Giunchigliani said that isn’t a reason to limit the possibility of something even better.

“We’ve got a lot of handlers now that are experts in this business,” she said. “Republic does a good job, they’re a good company … but you know what, a deal is a deal and they negotiated that franchise agreement so the consumer had two days of trash and, at a minimum, every other week of recycling.”

Scott Seastrand, vice president of Western Elite, another waste-management company, said Republic Services provides great service, but local municipalities should at least ask the market whether there is anybody who could do a better, and possibly more cost-effective job, through a request-for-proposal process.

“It’s an opportunity that’s not going to come back,” Seastrand said, at least until the next time the contract expires.

“If you don’t ever go out and try and find out what else is available, then you’re stuck with exactly the same horse that you’re riding and you’ve always been riding,” he said.

Review-Journal writer Jamie Munks contributed to this report. Contact Nicole Raz at nraz@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512. Follow @JournalistNikki on Twitter.