{"id":66182,"date":"2020-02-18T18:13:50","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T01:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/will-2020-be-the-year-colorado-bans-plastic-bags-styrofoam-and-other-single-use-plastics\/"},"modified":"2020-02-19T01:13:50","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T01:13:50","slug":"will-2020-be-the-year-colorado-bans-plastic-bags-styrofoam-and-other-single-use-plastics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/will-2020-be-the-year-colorado-bans-plastic-bags-styrofoam-and-other-single-use-plastics\/","title":{"rendered":"Will 2020 be the year Colorado bans plastic bags, Styrofoam and other single-use plastics?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A trash truck dumps its load in the working phase of the Larimer County Landfill in July outside of Fort Collins. The landfill is among those in Colorado nearing capacity. It will run out of space in 2024.<\/span>Kathryn Scott\/Special to The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The town of Avon did something daring in January: It banned expanded polystyrene food containers, a.k.a. Styrofoam.<\/p>\n

The move made the town the first community in Colorado to forbid such take-out food containers,<\/a> which don\u2019t do well in microwaves \u2013 or with trash recyclers.<\/p>\n

But it also put the town at odds with an obscure state law that prevents cities and towns from banning plastics. Avon\u2019s Ordinance No. 19-11 wasn\u2019t completely brazen, though. It was contingent on whether state lawmakers could overturn the 30-year-old statute.<\/p>\n

A bill to repeal local preemption failed to make it out of a Senate committee last week.<\/p>\n

\"Environmental
Environmental advocates littered the steps of the state Capitol on Feb. 28, 2019, to show the mess that disposable plastic bags can make.<\/span>Tamara Chuang\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Now the town is counting on a different measure. House Bill 1162 would also ban polystyrene<\/a>, but at the state level. It also has the blessing \u2013 or at least no opposition \u2013 of some of the groups that opposed rolling back the preemption.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s no guarantee Colorado will ever figure out how to modernize its waste laws \u2013 or whether it needs to \u2013 in order to satisfy the state\u2019s environmental goals by limiting single-use plastics used in things like grocery bags and straws and Styrofoam containers. Similar bills were proposed last year, with no success. More are on the way this session. It\u2019s created eco frustration among towns trying to reduce waste and for recyclers who are struggling to find a market after China stopped taking most recyclable plastics in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we went to testify, there was a list of 15 to 20 industries lobbying against lifting that preemption on the basis that local governments were going to start outlawing plastic bags for blood or defibrillators for health or medical equipment that uses plastics. There was all sorts of wild speculation,\u201d said Eric Heil, Avon\u2019s town manager who has also served as the town attorney. \u201cIn our review, we have not seen other states or other local communities passing these sort of horrible prohibitions of plastics that are needed for everyday life. So right now, we\u2019re kind of stuck with uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n

That obscure preemption law<\/div>\n

Sen. Kerry Donovan, who sponsored the preemption repeal bill, knows trash.<\/p>\n

Her family owned Vail Honeywagon, the local garbage company in Vail. When she was in high school, she\u2019d sometimes drive the garbage truck to school and would have to pick up trash from any missed customers on her way home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt resulted in not too many of my friends asking for rides, which was good, but it also made for a pretty long trip home on some nights,\u201d Donovan said during the committee hearing on Feb. 4.<\/p>\n

Her brother Matt got them into recycling while still a senior at University of Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cThirty years later, we\u2019re still grappling with the concept of recycling in a resort town in Vail, how to separate glass from aluminum and plastics, how to tell people to not use plastic bags because it seizes up the (machines at the recycler),\u201d she said at the hearing.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s realized the answer isn\u2019t recycling. It\u2019s reducing waste. Removing the local preemption is the first step in letting towns decide what is best for their citizens, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt also makes everyone at this table, the end-of-the-line consumer, responsible for solving a problem that starts years and months ahead with product design, manufacturing and habits of convenience,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

As previously reported in The Colorado Sun, the state ban on local plastic bans stems from 1989\u2019s House Bill 1300. It prevented local governments \u201cfrom regulating the use of plastic materials or products.\u201d The law was amended in 1993 with House Bill 1318, called the \u201cPromotion of Disposal Alternatives,\u201d which added the language about municipalities not restricting or mandating containers, packaging and labeling.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur conclusion was that this was really based on the state\u2019s concern that they didn\u2019t want local governments to interfere with the types of plastics recycled,\u201d Telluride Town Attorney Kevin Geiger said last year.<\/p>\n

In Colorado, at least 13 towns have gone ahead with some sort of plastics ban or bag fee, including the city of Denver, where a 10-cent fee goes into effect July 1.<\/p>\n

The Town of Avon also charges a 10-cent fee for plastic bags since passing an ordinance in 2017. \u201cWe have not been challenged on that,\u201d Heil said.<\/p>\n

State vs. local, urban vs. rural<\/div>\n

Polystyrene is difficult, though not impossible, to recycle.<\/p>\n

Over at Alpine Waste & Recycling in Denver, the company invested in a machine that compacts used foam into blocks heavy enough that they won\u2019t fly off trucks. But food containers are a different beast, especially if they aren\u2019t cleaned. Recycling is a tough business, Wendy Fauth, Alpine\u2019s Recyclable Materials Manager, said in an email.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have also seen a push to eliminate polystyrene materials entirely, but here at (parent company) GFL Environmental, we are proud to say we are still one of the few recycling facilities in the nation with the equipment and the willingness to handle polystyrene,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Denver-based
Denver-based Alpine Waste & Recycling invested in a foam-crushing machine that chops up the polystyrene foam and then presses it into these dense, 50-pound blocks. Piled on a pallet to load on trucks, the pallet of foam bricks weighs 500 to 1,000 pounds. Alpine is one of the few recyclers in the country equipped to recycle plastics from single-stream customers.<\/span>Kathryn Scott\/Special to The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

While there are differing studies on how long it takes for polystyrene foam to decompose \u2013 one study recently put it at \u201cdecades or centuries when exposed to sunlight, rather than thousands of years,\u201d according to SciTechDaily \u2013 that\u2019s still a long time.<\/p>\n

Several lawmakers who are backing plastics-use bills spoke out about their own environmental concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to take steps to reduce the pollution that we are creating,\u201d said state Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat who is sponsoring the bill to ban single-use plastics statewide to reduce pollution.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf China can do it, Colorado can certainly do it,\u201d she said. \u201cWe aren\u2019t reinventing the wheel here; other states and local governments have done what we are trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Industry associations say they support reducing waste, too, but laws need to be specific and statewide. Nick Hoover, manager of government affairs for the Colorado Restaurant Association, said many members are addressing concerns like, for example, not offering straws unless a customer asks. But leaving it up to local governments would create a headache for companies with multiple locations.<\/p>\n

And without exclusions, the bioscience industry will face uncertainty, said Emily Roberts, vice president of Colorado BioScience Association.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were just really concerned that local regulation could unintentionally include life-saving medicines, devices and medical equipment that patients rely on,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cBut I do want to clarify that we had hoped we could have amended the bill to have a statewide exemption for those products. And we were not able to do so, which is why we ended up opposing the bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the Feb. 4 hearing in the Senate Committee on Local Government, public testimony supporting and opposing the local preemption appeal went on for hours. In the end, the committee voted against the bill 3-2.<\/p>\n

Sen. Angela Williams, a Democrat from Denver, voted against the legislation because she said it would be an \u201cundue burden\u201d for businesses that manufacture and deliver these sorts of products. It would make it difficult for a national restaurant chain, for example, to manage take-out packaging from city to city.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m all about the environment, that\u2019s not the issue,\u201d Williams said. \u201cBut if we did this in a patchwork fashion, I\u2019m concerned about keeping up with that. We need to address it from a statewide perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donovan said she hadn\u2019t expected Williams\u2019 nay vote, but said the idea has widespread support and she may try again with another bill this legislative session, which ends in May.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if this state is ready yet for some of these statewide laws,\u201d Donovan said, pointing to the lack of recycling options in many rural areas. \u201cLocal communities are so much better equipped to write the right law for their community.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very early in the session and there is a lot of time to keep this idea alive,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Plastic ban, take 2<\/div>\n

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, eight states have banned single-use bags. Last year, 95 bills were introduced at the state level to consider a ban or fee. About 15 states, including Colorado, have a preemption in place.<\/p>\n

Industry groups say they don\u2019t want a \u201cpatchwork\u201d of separate policies in cities. Environmental advocates say policies will help communities gain more awareness of how much trash is produced and encourage recycling (Colorado\u2019s recycling rate inched up to 17.2% in 2018 compared with 12% the year before, according to EcoCycle\u2019s \u201cState of Recycling in Colorado.\u201d)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an ongoing debate that is creating tensions between urban and rural communities, said Nancy Billica, an instructor of political science at the University of Colorado who specializes in American politics and environmental policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd communities have had to have all kinds of clever workarounds because there are a number of communities in Colorado that have various bag rules and so on but they just have to use clever language that doesn\u2019t violate the state rule,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But, she added, if the preemption bill is resurrected in a different form, she wants to see the public more engaged in the issue, to help balance out the messaging from lobbying interests.<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, Roberts, with the BioScience Association, said the two pending plastics bills include language that separate out her concerns: \u201cFood does not mean a drug,\u201d they read.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this time, CBSA is not weighing in on those bills. I think they are narrower in scope and they clearly specify the types of materials or products that are being regulated,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s bill to ban polystyrene also made the distinction that food does not include drugs, but there was still opposition. The American Chemistry Council pointed out that alternatives tend to cost more money and the infrastructure to recycle wasn\u2019t always there. But the general consensus of why it didn\u2019t pass was the bill was introduced too late.<\/p>\n

\"Polystyrene
Polystyrene foam, also called Styrofoam, is on the recycling unwanted list.<\/span>Tamara Chuang\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Rep. Lisa Cutter, who is sponsoring the bill to ban Styrofoam, says she\u2019s confident that the bill will pass despite the preemption bill dying last week. Unlike last year\u2019s bill that only included take-out food, this year\u2019s bill includes hospitals, schools and dine-in restaurants.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are all after the same things, which is to eliminate or reduce excessive plastics in Colorado, but the bills do different things,\u201d she added. \u201cStyrofoam is one of the worst offenders when it comes to pollution. And the issue has been worked on a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, federal lawmakers introduced legislation to phase out some single-use plastic products. Called the \u201cBreak Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2020,\u201d it would create a national beverage container refund program, spur investment in recycling and composting infrastructure and require large companies to reduce wasteful packaging and design plastic products with less waste.<\/p>\n

Awareness is definitely growing, said Suzanne Jones, executive director of Boulder County recycler EcoCycle. While she believes it will take a few years for a federal law to pass, Colorado is much closer to passing a plastics law thanks to its past failures. She feels many of the issues got worked out during past sessions and 2020 could be the year Colorado gets a statewide plastics law on the books.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve never seen such a groundswell for public action, and communities are very anxious to lead,\u201d said Jones, pointing to support from the Colorado Municipal League, which represents 270 of the state\u2019s 272 cities. \u201cHonestly, I think we\u2019ll be successful this year. It\u2019s only a matter of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, journalist-owned news outlet. Read more at coloradosun.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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