Because Silver State Disposal, the only municipal waste hauler in the county (and owner of the local landfill), is a private company, all information regarding quantities of waste generated and recycled by hotels is considered proprietary and is not shared voluntarily. Hotels themselves have had difficulty in obtaining information from Silver State Disposal about the quantities and composition of the waste they generate. For that reason, comparing specific quantities of waste reduced or recycled in Las Vegas hotels to hotels that operate in states with mandatory recycling and reporting is difficult. Hotels in Las Vegas can only compare their efforts to those of other hotels in the community.In December 1995, I submitted a proposal to The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection (NDEP) to study the waste streams of Las Vegas hotels and restaurants. The study, called The Clark County Solid Waste Management Study, was a collaborative project between the UNLV Department of Environmental Studies and the Clark County Health District (CCHD). In May 1996, with assistance from Shane Martin of CCHD's Environmental Health Division, the year long project began. Our goal was to examine opportunities for waste reduction, and to increase recycling participation in Las Vegas hotels and restaurants.
I gathered information about hotel and restaurant recycling programs in the U.S. from journals and books, industry publications, and interviews with hotel management staff and recycling professionals in other states. In order to compare programs in Las Vegas hotels to other areas in the country, I interviewed management staff at twelve local hotels. Clint Combs from Waste Management Inc./RC Farms and Peter Miller from Silver State Disposal provided tours of several hotel recycling programs, and general information about how the hotel recycling programs are operated.
I contacted restaurants by mail to invite their participation in the UNLV/CCHD project. I sent out letters to 205 restaurants and 15 of these participated in the project. For each participating restaurant, I interviewed the restaurant's owner or a member of the management staff to gather information to develop a business-specific waste reduction and recycling program. I conducted a visual waste assessment at each participating restaurant to estimate the composition of the solid waste stream, to determine cost feasibility, and to establish an area of focus for each program. I calculated recycling program costs and savings and provided each restaurant with flyers for staff training and education. After program implementation, I maintained follow-up contact to ensure that programs were running smoothly and that no additional education was needed. Because of the often high staff turn-over and management changes in restaurants, it is important that recycling programs be designed to operate successfully without the need for long-term assistance. This report summarizes and sets in context data gathered in the course of the project.