Photo credit: thechicecologist

Aspen is proposing to put a 20-cent fee on disposable bags one might get at a grocery store. The idea is to help encourage locals and visitors to bring their own reusable shopping bags to the grocery store, and other retailers that offer disposable bags.

Single use bags, and more specifically plastic bags are a perceived problem. Paper isn’t perfect either, and this is one “environmentally conscious effort” sweeping its way through numerous municipalities all over the country. The idea is that this measure helps foster more sustainable behavior as opposed to “penalizing” those who will pay the fee.

One Aspen Councilman, Adam Frisch, has said in the past that he felt if Aspen was going to try and regulate disposable bags, why not just ban them outright? Other elected officials in nearby Colorado towns are reported to have similar wishes, to impose a 20-cent fee on disposable bags. In Aspen, if the measure does not achieve a 50 percent reduction goal in bag use within a six-month period, officials have planned to re-evaluate the measure. Telluride has a similar program in place. Several other areas have instituted an outright ban on the use of plastic bags.

In California, close to 10% of the WHOLE STATE lives in a no-plastic-bag community. According to a recent study, the average American uses up to 400 disposable grocery bags in a given year. Plastic bags are rarely recycled and used primarily for a single use, averaging a few minutes of “life” before being thrown away. These bags require fossil fuels to make, and often wind up in waterways like lakes, streams, and the ocean in coastal communities. They have helped to create the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” which is actually a floating island of trash the size of Texas located in the middle of the North Pacific. Fish and wildlife species often eat the bags, which present issues to the greater food web.