Clark County commissioners discuss proposed changes to trash pickup schedules. The board turned down a proposal to cut back garbage collection to once a week in a few neighborhoods to test whether Southern Nevada's recycling rate can be improved. Photo by Clint Karlsen.

Even on a small scale, it just didn't smell right.

Clark County commissioners turned up their noses Tuesday at the idea of cutting back garbage collection to once a week in a few neighborhoods to test whether Southern Nevada's abysmal recycling rate can be improved.

Board members rejected a recycling committee's recommendation that they adopt a pilot program in four volunteer neighborhoods that could later have been introduced valleywide if successful.

Under the program, recycling would have been simplified, recyclable materials would have been collected more frequently, and the cost increase would have been offset by reducing trash collection to once a week.

But commissioners said Tuesday that they've heard a heap of constituent complaints about the proposal, even though it would have been tested in only 1.2 percent of the valley's 416,000 single-family homes.

Commissioners asked the Southern Nevada Recycling Advisory Committee to come up with a proposal more palatable to the public than trash rotting for seven days outside in desert heat or inside garages that reach 140 degrees in the summer.

"If you keep waste in that garage for a long period of time," Commissioner Chip Maxfield said, "it's a serious concern."

Families with babies who need multiple daily diaper changes would be in worse shape, Maxfield said, while Commissioner Myrna Williams fretted for pet owners.

"I have concerns about once a week, especially for someone like me that has a lot of animals," said Williams, the owner of two dogs and two house cats.

The commission requested that the 20-member recycling committee return with a pilot program that could boost the valley's dismal 19 percent recycling rate with fewer foul side effects.

Commissioners' suggestions included the following:

• Studying the financial impact of revamping the recycling program while retaining twice-a-week garbage collection.

• Exploring whether customers could be offered incentives for participating in recycling programs.

• Designing a campaign to better educate the public about the importance of recycling.

• Adding construction sites and commercial businesses to their focus in increasing the recycling rate.

• Determining the feasibility of boosting pickup of recyclable materials to once a week, while retaining the twice-a-week garbage collection.

The pilot program would have introduced a "single-stream recycling system" in which plastic, paper and other recyclables would be put into a single large container provided by private trash contractor Republic Services of Southern Nevada and sorted by the company after collection. Glass would no longer have been accepted for recycling under the program since broken glass could contaminate the rest of the recyclables in the single bins.

The program presented to commissioners was designed to raise the valley's profoundly low recycling rate.

About 15 years ago, the Nevada Legislature set a goal for municipalities to recycle 25 percent of their solid waste.

Last year, Clark County recycled only 19 percent of solid waste from all sources. That rate plummets when looking only at households. Just 2 percent of residential waste made it into recycling bins last year, according to the Southern Nevada Health District.

Recycling committee members Dennis Campbell and Roma Haynes said Tuesday that the program recommended to commissioners focused on residential recycling because it holds the greatest opportunity for quick results: There's already a collection system in place, and it appears its 2 percent rate could easily be improved with the single-stream system.

Although several commissioners spoke at length about stench, Commission Chairman Rory Reid said his constituents were chiefly concerned about whether Republic Services would receive a financial windfall if its contractual obligation of twice-a-week service to valley homes was reduced to once a week.

Republic Services officials have not disclosed how much money the company would save in operational expenses by making fewer collection trips. They also have not publicly estimated how much additional revenue the company could realize from an expected increase in the amount of recyclable materials it would collect if more people participated in the simplified program.

However, county chief administrative officer Don Burnette said a third-party auditor would measure all financial implications of the program and present them to the commissioners, who could decide whether profit-taking by the company justified a residential rate decrease for customers.

Republic Services officials have pointed out that the company would be making a substantial initial capital investment in the program. The company would spend nearly $90 million to implement the program across the valley, about half of that going to provide the valley's single-family homes with two new bins, one for solid waste and one for recyclable material.

Currently, county residents must sort recyclable materials into separate 12-gallon bins for glass, paper and plastic.

Under the pilot program, residents would have received their choice of a 35-gallon, 65-gallon or 95-gallon wheeled container for all types of recyclables.

They also would have received a wheeled garbage bin from Republic Services instead of having to buy their own or renting one from the company.