Dive Brief:

• Entertainment venues in Las Vegas are making efforts to reduce waste and increase recycling.
• Resorts and casinos are in competition with each other to be the greenest: working to compost food, make siding and photo frames from recycled room keys, change corks into footwear and reconfigure bottles into decorative blocks.
• ​Caesars Entertainment, MGM Resorts International and Las Vegas Sands Corp. are all working towards sustainability, diversion and recycling due to increased pressure from consumers and because it increases their profit margins.

Dive Insight:

Caesars is launching a cigarette recycling program while MGM signed up for the EPA's Food Recovery Challenge, pledging to reduce food waste by 5% and tripling its recycling rate since 2007, according to its chief sustainability officer. MGM set a goal to divert half of its waste by next year while Caesars will match that rate by 2020. The Sands diversion rate is at 55%, while Expo and Convention Center is almost at 8%.