Post Earth Day '23: NEVADA 'NO' to Recycling; Deaths by Littering Rise

by STEVE SPACEK @litterscorecard

April 25, 2023

Pollution from waste littering and dumping incidents continues to harm Nevada’s public landscapes-- and the existence of people, despite Earth Day's celebration last Saturday. Many in Nevada, Clark County and Las Vegas continue to have a “great deal of concern” about harmful pollutants lingering on public land. Yet, the Silver State does not decree solid waste recycling, Now, the State recycles the very least amount of collected solid waste than any other in America, says Steve Spacek, Director of the American State Litter Scorecard.

Unabated, un-recycled solid wastes are capable of breeding and transmitting Covid and other deadly viruses, notes Spacek. Over 95 percent of collected solid wastes in Nevada are NEVER, EVER recycled nor re-used, just land-filled. The majority of the state’s generated solid wastes will end up at the Apex Landfill in northern Clark County. The size of 1,400 football fields, Apex takes in over 9,000 tons a day of untreated, virus-breeding wastes—more than any waste facility anywhere," said Spacek.

But since the beginning of the Pandemic in 2020, "deaths by waste" have seen a sharp rise statewide, from Elko to Reno to Ely to Henderson. These particular deaths can occur anywhere in Nevada, at anytime and under all types of weather," Spacek said.

For almost a decade, 2008 to 2017, the Scorecard determined Nevada to be a “Bottom-Ten Worst U.S. State Government," for least clean public spaces, overall, within its 16 Counties. In 2020, the Scorecard labeled Las Vegas a “USA’s Biggest 15 Most Waste Littered City,” where littering and dumping of potentially virus-breeding waste is visible and widespread within a 136 square mile boundary.

“Unfortunately, too many leading public officials--including Mayor Goodman and Governor Lombardo are not listening to residents nor voters. Public leaders need to work harder to reduce generated wastes and get waste trash off our sidewalks, roads and lakes. Politicians like Lombardo and Goodman need to stop thinking backwards, start having pride in America and Americans, start thinking about the future, the health and welfare of HUMAN constituents. Send less to landfills, more action and funding into sorely-needed, waste processing and waste repurposing jobs and Pro-Green infrastructures that prolongs, not ends, human life. Nevada, Las Vegas, Clark County do not need to emanate the excessive, landfill dependency cultures and problems Communist China and Communist Russia already contend with."

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