Washoe County commissioners on Tuesday pushed Waste Management for solutions on illegal dumping, and in particular, e-waste.
Waste Management’s Kendra Kostelecky said e-waste is not something the company collects.
“Electronic waste falls under household hazardous waste,” she said. That waste has to be processed by a third-party vendor.
“They are a separate business. They are not a WM business,” she said.
Commissioner Vaughn Hartung said because there is not an easy way to dispose of e-waste, people are dumping it in the desert.
“We see tons of it in Sun Valley, we see it out in Spanish Springs, and the people who live in the more urbanized areas… they don’t see that kind of dumping because they are not in those hinterland areas,” he said. “I think this begs a different conversation on how we can deal with this stuff.”
He said it would be cheaper, under the county’s franchise agreement, to subsidize e-waste recycling rather than illegal dump cleanups.
“It’s a little disconcerting that there isn’t an easy way to deal with this,” Hartung added.
Commissioner Jeanne Herman agreed.
“Back in the early days of this garbage stuff, the whole purpose of getting Waste Management or any other garbage company involved was because of all of the stuff that was spread all over the county,” she said. “The promise was that they would handle it.”
Commissioner Bob Lucey suggested a future meeting to discuss the issues.
