Could proposed Colorado law to ban plastic bags actually end up hurting the environment?

Glad this issue is getting the nuance it deserves.

This is a good point. We always hear how we need to act on these items and how so many other places were able to enact a law...SF, Ireland, Bangladesh, and so on. But has any one ever conducted a deep a study after the fact? Will these groups be around in two years for acountability if there are unforcasted challenges?

When I search sea turtle rescue groups one is listing patients...and cause of injury.
http://www.seaturtlehospital.org/turtleindex.htm

When they show what the turtles are eating it seems to be all debris and not so much plastic bags.

http://www.seaturtlehospital.org/mayplasticbits101708.jpeg

If the desired effect is to reduce hazards to turtles etc... should we not eliminate all plastics?

Also should these laws have requirements to sample highway cleanups or other methods to see if we are making progress or are these laws just feel good green wash?

I agree that Colorado should make a truly progressive stand and institute a charge for all bags. It's a misnomer to call such a bill a tax, as it would not add any cost to purchases if a reusable bag were used (apart small cost originally needed to purchase a reusable bag-most people probably have a bag that they could use). The intent is not to earn revenue, but to reduce waste.

The Vitamin Cottage on Buchtel Boulevard provides a excellent example of a bag-free business. They have a bin where they keep all of their used packaging for those instances when a customer forgets bags of their own or has overflow.

The one step that many studies on paper and plastic exclude is the recyclability of the bag. While paper takes much more energy to produce initially, it is a recyclable product, whereas plastic is only downcyclable (A paper bag can be recycled into another paper bag; plastic can only be remanufactured into items such as plastic lumber, not into another bag. Most plastic in those "recycling" bins at the store is sent abroad and incinerated. This is why city recycling systems will not accept plastic bags as well.)

A more important step is encouraging manufacturers to cut down on packaging waste on their products. A ban on bags does little good when the average product uses just as much waste.

Paper bags are impractical

Reusable bags cause a disruption in the efficiency of service (ie higher costs).

This is a well intentioned proposal by the students but is yet another program that will be more expensive than beneficial. Why not provide a tax incentive to businesses who collect used bags AND (in turn) provide an incentive to their customers? Free market and capitalism works if legislators take the conerns of their constituents and think it through a reasonable solution.

All that's being considered now is yet another burdon on businesses to charge $.06 per bag and fork over half of that to the unending government money pit. Despite a previous poster's asertion, THIS IS A 50% SALES TAX to those who would choose to purchase plastic bags. The only reason this is being seriously considered is because it WILL generate revenue since most people prefer the miracle of handles. If this were truly about saving the environment, why not just phase out plastic bags over three years and NOT attempt charge people for being forced to get used to something else?

Lesson in government, kids- give 'em something to line their political pockets with and you can bet your suggestion will be deeply appreciated. Now pay up!

One more thing: Would our Former Environmental Educator friend please explain how many times paper can be recycled into any kind of usable product? Perhaps 8 times rings a bell and you can bet most of those are not anything like a bag- more like insulation or packaging material.

I don't feel that just because a bunch a tree hugging children think they have a good idea governemnt needs to intervein on something this meaninal, they need to look at the big picture. Colorado for some reason has been horrible my entire 44 years of living here on recycling. I think they should put there efforts and my money toward deposit bottles that really add to our land fills than taking away plastic bags. I lived in Cincinnati for a while and had roaches, I do not allow paper bags of anykind in my house because roaches lay there eggs on the glue. I do not have resuable bags and problably won't use them if I did have them. It is not feasable to keep a bunch of them in my car ALL the time, and I seem to be at a store everyday, with all the volunteer projects I am involved with. Instead of having BIG Government mandate what we should do because we are to stupid to do it on our own, I feel that there are better ways to force the recyling way of life, look east not west, they have it figured out.

People in other countries are accustomed to bringing in their own bags rather than using plastic bags, so US citizens could do this as well. What I wonder is why are we tackling this issue instead of others with a larger impact?

According to Envirosax, CRI and other environmental agencies, we use about 3.2 million barrels of oil every year to make plastic bags. However, we'll use over 15 millions barrels of oil making disposable plastic water bottles this year. This doesn't include carbonated beverages, just bottled water.

Several times in the past Colorado has voted down a bottle recycling bill. Perhaps now is the time to try this again and make sure we include plastic bottles. These bottles are made from a very recyclable plastic and they could be recycled at the same levels as aluminum cans with a little incentive.

i think that bags must be band NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!