Nevada’s Waste Revolution: Pioneering Progress in Sustainable Management

Las Vegas sustainability

Las Vegas waste management situation

It is not enough to implement a tax for Nevada residents to adopt new waste management habits. The process must be accompanied, otherwise people will throw their waste into nature and they will not respect the law.

To avoid this pitfall, Las Vegas has put in place a whole system to assist sorting at source, in particular that of bio-waste. Collective composters have been systematically installed at the foot of the condominiums. For residents who do not have access to these, composting chalets run by an operator serve as on-site delivery points.

An experiment in collecting compost by bicycle by an association has also been carried out for six months in the city center of Las Vegas, because this area remains too dense to install composting bins on every street corner. Once good habits are acquired, however, there is no guarantee that they will last. Waste management experts noticed that the quantity of waste had, for example, increased during the Covid-19 epidemic. People did work on their homes, they ordered more meals and home supplies, etc. In the end, a simple situation is enough to wipe away five years of effort and deconstruct good habits.

How, in these conditions, can we work to ensure that an approach is successful in the long term? Junk disposal specialsts first insist on the importance of raising awareness among the general public. The user must understand that they must not feed this system, that it is not their role to produce waste. We have to convince people that it is also their responsibility.

This factor is also determining: it seems trivial to raise awareness among one or two residents in workshops, but word of mouth ends up paying off. Most people are looking for information, they want to do well. The motivation is there, but we must assimilate the right actions and understanding of the system by organizing awareness workshops and distributing instructions.

The Las Vegas neighborhood, this cutting-edge technology

The initiative can sometimes even come from the users themselves if they are concerned with Nevada sustainability. The case of the province of Hernani, a municipality of less than 20,000 inhabitants in the Spanish Basque Country, is rather telling in this respect. In the 2010s, a consortium of Spanish companies aimed to open two new incinerators in the province.

Several citizens were strongly opposed to this project. Elected officials will gradually begin to support the protesters. Usurbil, a town of 6,000 inhabitants, is setting up a source sorting and door-to-door waste collection system. In just six weeks, the number of landfills fell by 80%. Hernani quickly followed Ursubil’s example. The municipality is starting to remove large containers from the streets.

Instead, it distributes two individual trash cans per household as well as devices for hanging them in front of houses and buildings. Each waste stream has its own collection day (bio-waste on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday; paper and cardboard on Tuesday, etc.). In the space of one year, the number of waste sent to landfills decreased by 54%, a situation which allowed the mayor of Hernani to declare: our cutting-edge technology is the neighborhood. If the neighbors sort at the source, we don’t need to build an incinerator!

However, residents are not the only ones with leverage for action. Town planners and architects also have a role to play in this transition, in particular by rethinking the role allocated to spaces and their articulation with new uses. We must rethink dense urban environments to store, but also sort and repair waste. The deposit is an interesting case: it forces urban planners to imagine spaces designed for the sharing or repair of objects.

We can think in particular of certain repair cafés which are flourishing in our Las Vegas urban environments, of the new eco-districts which integrate the functions of repair places, etc., which suggests rethinking the built environment. It seems stupid, but adding a bin for bio-waste requires designing a larger room. A logic perfectly summed up like this: when you build a city or a building, it doesn’t just have to be beautiful. We must think of our infrastructures from the outset of their design as integral elements of this circular economy.

The zero waste city is a prospect

However, there is no miracle recipe for becoming a model city in this area, other than increasing the budget allocated to the task of prevention – a task for which only 2% of waste union budgets are allocated. allocated on average in Las Vegas.

Each case is different: some cities focus first on bio-waste, others want to reduce plastic. Some introduce a tax. A community can decide to activate one lever rather than another, depending on its situation, in order to achieve the objectives it has set for itself. These prove to be all the more difficult to achieve as zero waste has never yet been entirely thought of at the scale of a community.

You can always reduce the amount of waste thrown away, but in the end you will always have some left over. It remains to be seen how to value the irreducible part. Experts recognize that, for the moment, it remains unthinkable for Las Vegas to close its last incinerator in the medium term. This option seems improbable, especially since they do not have a landfill.

Even if we reach the objective of 90 kg of household waste produced per year per household, the remaining kilos will still have to be treated. The only more or less realistic solution: pool the last incinerator with other neighboring areas within the same department, which could lead to further reducing the quantity of waste produced on site. An idea that could in any case only be feasible within twenty, even thirty years.

This is not enough to discourage everyone: of course, there is no perfect solution, but the territories which commit to human and financial resources to reduce their waste production already have the merit of existing. And the president of Las Vegas Dumpster Rentals Whiz believes that the zero waste city is a prospect. It remains to be seen whether the legislative obligation provided for in Las Vegas for 2025 will be enough to convince new municipalities to align with this objective.

Recycling centers and waste management

NC landfills
Recycling centers are classified installations for the protection of the environment. They are open to residents of the community so that they can deposit household and similar waste that they do not are not allowed to present for household waste collection.

The establishment of a network of recycling centers and landfills in North Carolina completes the collection system to develop recycling mechanisms as much as possible and recovery of household waste and avoid wild deposits, in accordance with the local regulations.

The users are residents and professionals. Users must strictly comply with the instructions and sorting instructions, given on site by the agents who are trained for this purpose. It should also be noted that users must unload their waste themselves. In no case the staff has to carry out loadings or unloads.

Recycling centers access

Access to recycling centers is reserved and free for residents residing in the territory of one of the municipalities of NC. In the event of a dispute, the user must present proof of address. Access is paying for private companies, administrations, non-resident services in the territory, subject to prior registration and compliance with quantities to deposit and tariffs applied.

Access is limited to the following vehicle categories: light vehicles with or without a trailer, vehicles with a maximum total weight of 3.5 T and a height less than 2 m. Waste management companies can drop Wilmington dumpsters and roll-offs from other NC citie.

Vehicles with a maximum P.T. of 3.5 t and a height of less than 2m does not apply to collectors responsible for removing waste on the upper track in recycling centers on behalf of the Community.

The quantities admitted cannot exceed the admissible production for a household, i.e. 2m3 per day with all products combined.

Types of waste

Authorized waste are miscellaneous household bulky items, wood, scrap metal, household oils (private individuals only), plastic films, clothing and shoes, toys, empty and clean metal or plastic drums, motorized cultivators and tools (emptied of their oil), polystyrene, mopeds or bikes, cuttings and rubble, mowing of lawn, pruning products or garden branches (except stumps), papers, cartons, newspapers, books, materials IT (individuals only), hi-fi and video, clean plaster, household appliances (private individual only).

Waste authorized under conditions include Special Household Waste, accepted up to the limit of 10 liters per daily intake. The deposit of Special Household Waste must be made by users in the area reserved for this purpose and under the control of the reception staff.

They include: car batteries, bases, cosmetics, neon lights, fluorescent tubes, lamps, phytosanitary, drugs, paints, aerosol cans, glues, batteries (cadmium, nickel, alkalines, buttons, etc.), varnishes, mercury and derivatives, photo products, oils, solvents, radiography, fire extinguishers, gas cylinders , acids. Tires brought by individuals are accepted within the limit of 4 light vehicle tires (truck tires and agricultural vehicles prohibited). A control of admitted waste may be carried out within the recycling center by staff.

Prohibited waste are household waste, explosive, flammable products or liquid, radioactive fuels (in particular hunting cartridges, bullets and rockets). To be returned to the police, the entire elements of the car bodyor truck, household oils except individuals, waste anatomical or infectious, the fat from the grease traps, agricultural tarpaulins, dead animals, flocking and asbestos slabs. This list is not exhaustive, the keeper of the recycling center is authorized to refuse waste which, by its nature, their forms, their dimensions, volumes or quantities, would present a danger or specific constraints for exploitation.

Recycling center regulations

Reception staff will advise and guide users to dumping and treatment sites waste not accepted on recycling centers. In the event of unloading of materials not admitted, the costs of recovery and transport will be the responsibility of the offending user, who can be seen, in the event of a recurrence and after putting into operation remains, refuse access to recycling centers, without prejudice damages which may be due to the Community

Circulation within the recycling centers must be done in strict compliance with the highway code, and signage put in place. The speed is limited to 15km / hour maximum. Parking of vehicles for recycling center users is only authorized on quays for the duration of waste dumping operations in skips and containers. Users must leave this platform as soon as the unloading is completed in order to avoid any congestion on the platform.

The deposited waste is the exclusive property of the operator. Access to recycling centers is prohibited for anyone who does not bring waste. Access to the interior of skips or boxes is strictly prohibited to any person. The recovery of materials is prohibited to any person apart from the provisions made by the local government for the recovery of waste.

The user is civilly liable for the damage he causes goods and people in the recycling center. Users must comply with these regulations and instructions given by operating personnel regarding traffic and safety rules. The center declines any responsibility in case of accident resulting from non-compliance with the instructions. Vehicle maneuvers and operations unloading is done at the users’ own risk.

For safety reasons, it is forbidden to smoke on the whole site or to bring any heat source in the area. The center declines all responsibility in the event of non-compliance with these safety instructions. Any user, contravening these regulations, will be prosecuted if necessary, in accordance with the laws and regulations in force. More generally, users offenders may be denied access to recycling centers, temporarily or permanently.

Rules to Being a Successful Remodeler

remodeling your home
Here are some rules to follow if you want to get started with remodeling part of your house.

  1. Never give up and never say never
  2. Be relentless with your research.
  3. Deliver the WOW in every area of your renovation.
  4. Embrace change and think outside the square.  
  5. Have fun at work and in life 
  6. Build trust and respect in your relationships for they are the rocket fuel of your success.
  7. Do more with less; don’t be intimidated by a tight budget, look on it as a challenge.  
  8. Look on problems as the stepping-stones to achievement.
  9. If there is something you don’t want to so, do it anyway.
  10. Be passionate, generous and humble.

It is one thing to know the exact color you want on a wall but it is quite another to actually identify the paint that is going to bring your vision to life.

The hours you spend with a cup of tea over a paint chart are one of the joys of renovating but once you start the seemingly endless treks to and from from the hardware store with armfuls of sample pots, the joy soon degenerates into frustration. It is one thing to know the exact color you want on a wall but it is quite another to actually identify the paint that is going to bring your vision to life.

Paint color is one of the pivotal decisions you will make in a renovation; it has the power to control the look and feel of a room and the emotions of those living in it so it just has to be right. Some people go for the tried and tested approach: finding a color scheme they like and repeating it over and over again. The truth is that a color on one house will look completely different on another thanks mainly to differences in light

Paint is relatively cheap in the scheme of things but the application is costly either in the cost of the painter or your own time and energy. A poor color choice that requires a re-paint is an expensive mistake and one to be avoided.

Engaging a good color consultant will remove all the pain associated with selecting colors but you still get to play with the colors, the difference is that you have someone turning your vision into reality. Of course if you don’t have a clue about what colors you want, a consultant will guide you through the best color choices for your home.

The main advantages of using the color consultant, other than saving in time ,energy and anxiety spent on the sample pot scenario is that it paves the way for all other decisions to be made over finishes.

For example you will use your paint color selections as the reference for selecting tiles, soft furnishings, bench tops, etc. In short, it takes away the difficulty associated with decisions making over finishes.

Generally a color consultant will work for an hourly rate and spend a couple of hours on internal and external paint colors selections but make sure you get a quote up front.

Part of remodeling your house is the cleaning required at the end. If you tore some walls down you may end up with a lot of construction debris including concrete. Painting itself will leave you with paint containers, which are hazardous materials to handle with care. Usually people doing a large remodel will rent a rollfoff dumpster so they can easily remove all this junk.

How To Select A Dumpster Rental and Waste Management Service

construction project
It is a fact that some people find that selecting a waste management service can become tedious. However it is also a fact that property waste disposal is critical for ensuring that certain types of waste will not contaminate the environment.

To help you select the waste management service in the United States here are some of the things you need to look out for when renting a dumpster and hiring a waste management service.

Renting a dumpster is needed when you are in the middle of a big construction project, such as remodelling part of your house, redesigning your garden or adding a swimming pool to it. It is also useful when you are trying to sell your house in Chicago and your broker tells you to make a big cleanup first to get a better price.

1. Company Reliability

One of the most horrifying things about waste management is when you are facing an overly piled dumpster. Apart from the considerable health hazards it poses, it can also be a great inconvenience to you and the rest of the people living or working in the area. Regular collection happens when you hire a reliable company. Make sure to check their customer reviews to ensure that this is one of the company’s priorities.

2. Customer Service

Today, companies need to put importance on customer service. A good waste management company will ensure that they handle calls and queries as swiftly as possible in a professional manner. The company needs to have a polite and proactive staff to make sure that their customers are getting the service that they paid for.

3. Environmental Credentials

One of the reasons why you should hire a waste management company is because you need to be a part of keeping the Earth green. Working with an accredited waste company with a recycling-led focus assures customers that they are not contributing to the detrimental effects of waste on our planet. A good choice is a company like Dumpster Rental, Tucson, AZ that is focused on trash segregation on top of the other waste management practices that support the environmental policies imposed by the state laws.

4. Price

The truth is, waste management can be expensive, especially when your dumpsters contain hazardous waste. Often, services that are priced slightly higher offer a more reliable service. As a rule of thumb, if the prices are too good to be true, then they probably do not deliver the service you are expecting.

When you make use of waste management practices and dumpster rentals, you allow your house or business to operate without causing a detrimental impact on the environment. So think about getting a dumpster rental and waste management service in time. That way you can be a part of the massive community, helping to clean the Earth one step at a time.

Dumpster truck optimization: what environmental gains

Two-compartment roll-off trucks and mechanical sorting, hybrid vehicles … All types of alternative collection services for communities. If they represent an additional cost compared to conventional skips, they generate concrete environmental gains.

The optimization of waste collection depends on the type of vehicles used and better management of the tours. In a study dated May 2013 of more than 150 pages, an association of elected officials and Ademe gathered the feedback from communities that tested different ways of innovation in transport, with cleaner waste and brakes to lift for deployment.

The objectives was to reduce the financial and environmental impacts, while improving the quality of service to the residents and the comfort of the collection agents.

Compartmented garbage containers (BOM), hybrid vehicles (electric, natural gas for vehicles (NGV), diesel, biomethane) are all solutions tested by municipalities. The study quantified the gains generated in terms of collection costs, reduced kilometers traveled and therefore fuel savings and CO2 emissions, but also a reduction in noise pollution compared with conventional garbage trucks.

The compartmentalised skips allow the simultaneous collection of several waste streams: residual household waste (OMR) and bio-waste, recyclable packaging and glass, OMR and cartons … The undeniable advantage of this type of vehicle is to allow the optimization of the routes with a collection of at least 2 waste streams in a single pass which is accompanied by a decrease in the routes served and associated service operating costs (fuel and collection personnel).

Mechanized separate collection

Among the initiatives to be able to develop better some municipalities are experimenting with a bi-compartmentalized 4×4 waste collection vehicle (Renault Trucks de total permissible gross weight (GVWR) of 14 tonnes) to collect the bins installed on the sand. This vehicle, in service since 2006, is suitable for driving on sand and allows to mechanically collect the waste containers of the two streams simultaneously (residual household waste and recyclable household packaging + mixed papers). In high season (May to the end of September), the dump collects this waste 7 days out of 7.

This type of separate collection vehicle generates a lower fuel consumption. Thus the old solution used to collect waste on the beach (tractor + trailer with bagged flow) consumed 84 L / 100 km of diesel in manual gripping. With the new BOM 4×4, this consumption has increased to 68 L / 100 km in mechanized collection. If the community did not specify the amount of the vehicle, it indicates an additional cost compared to a conventional BOM of + 25% in investment and + 20% in maintenance. The brakes remain the specific driving on sand generating risks of stagnation, but also the scarcity of the vehicle.

The intercommunal water union also had in 2006 its first bi-compartmented bucket then in 2009 and in 2012 of two others to optimize the costs on the distant sectors where the bucket ran more than 100 kilometers a day. The total investment cost of the three skips (2 RVI chassis and a 26-tonne Volvo truck chassis) was high. The union stresses a reduction in the environmental impacts related to the circulation of collection vehicles without, however, quantifying them.

On two-compartment bins, the capacity of the small compartment for the selective has necessitated a reorganization of the routes and the garbage dumps sometimes come to 2/3 of filling in household garbage: the compartment of the recyclables is too small and its speed of filling can penalize the optimization of the tours. It is therefore recommended before any implementation, a global preliminary feasibility study as well as to opt for “a 50-50 distribution for household and recyclable waste compartments.

New generation hybrid vehicles

Ambitious technical choices made by some communities, especially in terms of motorization of collection vehicles confirm the desire to move towards a cleaner transport of waste. These technical guidelines are however, to be studied closely in terms of financial stakes, fuel supply conditions (which may come from the transformation of waste itself), from the adequacy to the typology of the habitat crossed with the performance and autonomy of vehicles.

Some local authorities test diesel / electric hybrid garbage trucks. Since February 2012, M2A has been experimenting with a prototype developed by Renault Trucks (Distribution Hybrys Tech of 26 tons PTAC) which circulates in sixteen municipalities of the agglomeration. The manufacturer had already tested it in some streets in 2009. With approximately 500 hours of operation, this vehicle had traveled more than 5,000 kilometers and collected 550 tons of waste.

The hybrid BOM delivered to M2A is the first of its kind to be operated on a pay-as-you-go basis, and the hybrid technology is particularly suited to the distribution or collection of waste in urban or peri-urban areas. The fuel consumption gain, estimated by the manufacturer can go up to -25%. That is an average consumption of 52 L / 100 km representing a drop of 16 liters compared to a conventional diesel bucket of the same size. This reduction in fuel consumption suggests a gain of $5,000 per year on the fuel item by BOM table agglomeration.

The estimated gain in carbon footprint is estimated at 8 tonnes of CO2 per year. The vehicle’s electric motor has a power output of 120 kW (kilowatt) peak and 70 kW continuously. The agglomeration concludes to a reliable technology with successful operation. Traction batteries do not need to be recharged.

From about 20 km / h, the diesel engine takes over. It is then used only in the phases where it consumes the least, that is to say outside the startup phase. The vehicle is renting full service over 5 years as part of the test. It costs almost double the equivalent of a diesel vehicle. The agglomeration does not provide for extension of the test to other sectors or purchase of hybrid BOMs at the moment. Due to the presence of automatic electric containers (high hopper), the collection of bags is made difficult for the collection agents.The containerization of the agglomeration has been effective for many years in half of the communes, it is In the near future, this constraint will no longer be one.

In 2012, the mixed garbage syndicate park was composed of twenty-six hybrid natural gas CNG (natural gas for vehicles) and electric waste vehicles of PTAC of 26T. The investments of the collection provider are $238,000 per hybrid dump versus $140,000 for a conventional diesel vehicle. The mixed union has installed 26 electrical terminals for a cost of $132,000 for recharging vehicles. Since 2003, it has a GNV delivery station and 10 supply terminals (investment of $747,000).

The choice of NGV reduces nitrogen oxide emissions by 2 to 5 times compared to diesel at 20 km / h and emits almost no particles. A hybrid CNG / electric dump also allows for an additional 20% reduction in NGV consumption. The optimization of the collection circuits thanks to the versatile modular hopper system reduces the fleet of 10 trucks. The new hybrid vehicles also guarantee a lower noise level compared to a diesel vehicle equipped with a non-electric compaction grab.

That is a 40% decrease in noise pollution (from 107 to 72 decibels). Its brakes? Technical points are however, to be settled upstream of the service set up: the hybrid skips represent a door overhang 50 cm higher than the old skips, which requires a redesign of some circuits. For narrow or sloping streets and for cul-de-sacs, mini-dumps ensure the collection of residual household waste, recyclable household packaging / mixed paper and green waste.

For its part, the urban community has chosen to develop biomethane-fuel produced from organic waste to feed its garbage dumpsters, in partnership with a collection provider and a supplier of CNG trucks Mercedes. They have a fleet of 10 BOMs running on the CNG / biomethane mixture: 9 19T PTAC and one 26T BOM, acquired between 2005 and 2008. The metropole raises up to 95% reduction of particulate emissions and 85% reduction of nitrogen oxides compared to diesel-powered dumpsters!

It also sees a 23% reduction of CO2 emissions compared to gasoline and up to 5% compared to diesel. Up to 50% reduction in noise pollution compared to a diesel vehicle is found. The BOMs feed on CNG / biomethane on the bus depot managed by Transpole. They consume between 80 and 100 normal cubic meters (NM3) per 100 km.