Wednesday, May 4, 2022
Earth Day Musings
Posted By Babs De Lay on May 4, 2022, 4:00 AM
I was recently in Las Vegas for less than 48 hours to visit with a college roommate and her mom, who was turning 90. They had flown in from Minnesota with family to enable her to drink whiskey and gamble for her landmark date. Pretty fun to catch up on decades.
Her mom and I have kept track of each other over the years on Facebook. So, what the hell, I flew down and surprised her at the Golden Nugget downtown. I hadn't been there for a few years and the town was packed for the NFT Draft.
The room was fine except for the Fremont Street noise each night (complimentary ear plugs were in each room), but I was aghast that there was no evidence of recycling in the room, hotel or casino. Each room came with at least four single-use water bottles and at least half of the folks wandering the casino had such bottles in hand.
Apparently, Nevada does not have mandated recycling. Yet, Las Vegas is one of the fastest growing areas of the U.S. and the average stay for a hotel visit is four days, which can generate up to 2.5 lbs of waste per room. Hotels in Vegas range from 200 to 6,000 rooms apiece, with more than 145,000 available lodging rooms and some of the largest hotels in the world. One article I read reported that up to 40% of the total waste generated by hotels is food waste.
Several hotels have their own recycling program in-house, where employees separate trash. Harrah's generates 28 tons of steel from beer and soda cans. The Hilton and other hotels have people search through trash for valuable silverware, dishes and linens lost in hotel waste. Treasure Island recycles 900 tons of materials each year and many hotels give leftover food to local charities.
Back home in SLC, I wonder what new highrises and hotels will be doing to help our planet. In January 2018, SLC changed its ordinances to require businesses and multi-family properties that produce over four cubic yards of waste each week to recycle. Hopefully that means the almost completed Hyatt Regency (700 rooms at 170 S. West Temple) will be planet-friendly.
There's the 40-story building going up on the corner of 200 South and State Street, and the 30-story one at 300 South and 300 East, where the Tavernacle was located. Not to mention that virtually each block in the main downtown area and west to the airport has at least one new multi-level housing unit going up now or in the near future. All will have a huge impact on food waste, recyclables and trash in our capital city.
Salt Lake City has a goal to become zero-waste by 2040—that's just 18 years away. Something tells me we may need to extend that goal unless we want to be more aggressive with overall recycling here. And then, how much water will Vegas and SLC be needing to accommodate growth? That's a topic for another issue!
About The Author
Babs De Lay
A full-time broker/owner of Urban Utah Homes and Estates, Babs De Lay serves on the Salt Lake City Historic Landmark Commission. A writer and golfer, you'll find them working as a staff guardian at the Temple at Burning Man each year.
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