Every other week, Republic Services collects recyclables curbside from Las Vegas residents. (Yard waste, however, would be classified as trash, which is collected twice weekly.) The company accepts aluminum and other metals – particularly tin – glass, and air conditioners and compressors, car tires, carpet, and bathtubs, among other things. For comprehensive listings of what items are accepted curbside and which -- including batteries, 55-gallon drums, antifreeze, cooking oil, animal carcasses, cars and boats, and ammunition -- are accepted but must be delivered to one of the two disposal facilities, check the official website. There's no charge to current paid residential customers as long as you present a valid Nevada ID listing the service address the waste is coming from and a copy of the most recent billing statement.
Recyclables used to be identifiable on the curbside from the red, white and blue baskets into which Las Vegans were meant to sort their plastics, paper and metal recycling. However, since 2009 the company has been switching to a self-proclaimed "One container, many benefits" approach, whereby all recyclables are consolidated into a giant blue bin, the same shape and size as a Republic Services garbage bin. Republic Services has even prepared a didactic video that explains the new regime. Its only stipulation is that your recyclables be "Clean, Empty, Dry."
The policy change, however, is still in the implementation stage, as it is not compatible with all Republic Services recycling vans (strange, yes, but that was the official explanation), which (sort of) explains why few of the big, blue bins are yet to be seen on Las Vegas streets, even now a half-decade later. There was also talk of trading off twice-weekly pick-up for once-a-week service only, which many customers balked at (with our summer heat it doesn't take long for things to get stinky around these parts).
Back in '09, only two percent of residential addresses in the valley were participating in curbside recycling and this has been attributed in no small part to a certain conflict of interests as far as Republic Services -- a private company and its priorities. As an article in the Las Vegas Sun last August put it, "The company that collects our trash owns the biggest landfill in the nation and receives little financial incentive to keep garbage out of it. So while Strip resorts recycle more than half their solid waste, about 90 percent of the county's residential garbage is buried, seemingly guilt-free, in the desert ... In 2013, just 4 percent of Republic’s $8.4 billion in revenue came from recycling. Seventeen percent came from landfill dumping fees and 77 percent came from waste collection." In contrast, at least 50 percent of the solid waste generated by Strip resorts is recycled -- from food, which goes to the local pig farm, to unused soap, which is the subject of an upcoming QoD.
For those who do not want to subscribe to Republic Services or would simply rather handle their own recycling, there is also Nevada Recycling, which maintains drop-off facilities in North Las Vegas and Henderson. The University of Nevada-Las Vegas has a somewhat ramshackle recycling facility on the northwest corner of its campus. Although not well publicized, it doesn’t lack for traffic, as its dumpsters always seem to be on the verge of overflowing. It’s not as antiseptic a solution as signing up for Republic Services, and it requires a bit more elbow grease, but it’s free. And there are a few public recycling events throughout the year, in conjunction with the local NPR station and other entities, where you can take along everything from sensitive documents in need of shredding, to expired prescription drugs, to used clothing, to the usual array of glass, metals, plastics, and so on.
