Clark Count Economic Indicators

More garbage may be good thing for local economy

By Troy Wayrynen

The Columbian

From the curb to the conveyor belt: Workers at one of Clark County’s three transfer stations pull non-fiber items from a sorting line containing mostly paper products Wednesday. The county has recently seen an increase in both recycling and garbage volumes. This photo was made using a slow shutter speed technique.

Collection crews continue to find misplaced items in the county’s blue recycle bins. Here’s what to do with some common items.

Put it IN: Newspaper, mixed paper, cardboard (rinsed if drink or soup containers), aluminum and tin cans, clean foil, empty aerosol cans, plastic tubs, buckets, nursery pots, plastic bottles.

Leave it OUT: Glass (collected in a separate bin), plastic bags, paper towels, paper plates, food-soiled foil, auto parts, Styrofoam, motor oil bottles.

Other stuff: Dozens of other items can be collected separately or taken to a transfer station for proper disposal. Unwanted medications can be taken to local law enforcement agencies. For more information, visit www.recyclinga-z.com .

Looking for some positive economic news? Look no further than the giant piles of garbage at Clark County’s three transfer stations.

In 2010, the county saw an increase in the amount of garbage it sent to the landfill, according to data released earlier this year. The uptick followed three straight years of declining garbage — largely seen as an economic indicator, particularly for building activity that produces much of the county’s waste.

During down years, the same trend reached right down to residents’ curbside bins, said county sustainability specialist Rob Guttridge.

“People were just buying less, consuming less and making less waste,” he said. “The economy is a big driver.”

Of course, most people wouldn’t consider more garbage in a landfill a good thing. But recycling volume is also on the rise. In the first three months of 2011, most of Clark County collected more recycling than during the same period in any of the previous four years.

Las Vegas – A Great Real Estate Buyer's Market in 2008 | Las vegas ...

Today, there are more homes on the market, priced more reasonably, with fewer competing buyers bidding against you. Many investors and families buying second homes who were buying everything in sight in Clark County five years ago are selling now. The number of listings have declined in recent months, but that is owing to the length of time a typical listing is staying on the market, which is growing. There is more choice in today’s Las Vegas real estate market than there has been in many years. Housing values have actually decreased in Las Vegas in recent months, which may be bad news for short-term speculators in real estate, but is great for families looking to buy a home in Las Vegas. For-sale prices fell 3.5 percent in the market over the last three months. Yet real estate is still among the best investments you can make: Home prices have increased in 34 of the last 40 quarters in Las Vegas, and a home bought for $100,000 in March, 1998 is worth about $225,000 today. And Las Vegas is after all Las Vegas, which among many other things means tourists, money and jobs just keep on coming. Nearly 46,000 new hotel rooms are under construction or planned for the next five years in Vegas. 2007′s hotel occupancy rate was the highest since 1996. And overall, the Southern Nevada Index of Leading Economic Indicators reached a record high in February, 2008.

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