Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

New recycling facility doubles region’s ability to divert trash from landfill

Republic Services Recycling Center

Mikayla Whitmore

A look inside Republic Services Recycling Center on Friday, Nov. 6, 2015, in Las Vegas.

Republic Services Recycling Center

A look inside Republic Services Recycling Center on Friday, Nov. 6, 2015, in Las Vegas. Launch slideshow »

Slowly but surely over the years, Southern Nevadans have learned to recycle much of their trash, to the point where the region’s primary waste disposal company, Republic Services, couldn’t handle it all and had to send recyclables to its desert landfill instead.

The company has now caught up, by opening on Thursday an expanded residential recycling center that will double the amount of recyclable material it can process.

The company boasts that, when combined with the existing facility on the same site, the enlarged Southern Nevada Recycling Center, near the intersection of Cheyenne Avenue and Commerce Street in North Las Vegas, is the largest residential recycling operation in the country, with a capacity of 2 million pounds of recyclable material per day, or 70 tons an hour.

And it comes with a field-trip-friendly attraction — a learning center that explains the recycling process and benefits while showing, on a live video stream, the recycling operation as it occurs.

In addition to diverting a larger volume of recyclable material from its sprawling landfill at the Apex industrial site, the expansion will allow Republic to take plastics that until now were beyond its ability to process, such as yogurt containers, the clear and black-plastic containers commonly used for take-out food, and the 86 million milk and juice cartons served each year to Clark County public school students.

The new complex, estimated at its groundbreaking a year ago this month to cost $34 million, covers 2.5 acres under a single roof. More than 75 percent of the building was made from recycled or remanufactured steel, and about 15 percent of its electricity needs will be met by 1,776 rooftop solar panels.

The biggest advances are reflected in the technology inside, including 2D and 3D optical sorters that can decide how to separate material in milliseconds, in addition to more conventional magnets, vibrators, screens and glass crushers.

The plant will employ about 180 full-time workers, some equipped with computer tablets monitoring systems in real time.

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