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DENVER — Starting Jan. 1, 2023, a new Colorado law will require that everyone pay 10 cents for each single-use plastic or paper bag they require for store purchases.
The plan is to transition shoppers to reusable bags, eventually banning single-use bags altogether.
A handful of Utah cities have ordinances that prohibit the use of plastic bags but there appears to be little political traction for a statewide policy, said Dave Davis, president and chief legal officer of the Utah Retail Merchants Association.
Prior to the pandemic, a number of cities were considering bans of plastic grocery bags.
"When the pandemic hit, the idea of reusable bags became less appetizing for people," Davis said. Some people had concerns that the coronavirus could be contracted from touching surfaces. It was later determined that the risk of infection from touching a surface was low.
As COVID-19 cases have waned, some communities across the country have resumed plans for bag bans or charging for bags.
Colorado's statewide policy will likely work better than a patchwork of policies that can persuade shoppers to take their business elsewhere if they can't or don't want to pay for bags, Davis said. It is especially problematic in densely populated areas that have wall-to-wall cities, he said.
Davis said convenience stores represented by the retail merchants association say some customers will drive several miles away to save five cents a gallon on motor fuel so it is not inconceivable that some consumers would seek out nearby municipalities that have no local regulations on grocery bags.
Growing numbers of retailers are heeding the environmental arguments to reduce, if not eliminate, single-use bags themselves.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States has one of the highest rates globally for plastic waste generated per person. Single-use plastics make up about half of global plastic waste generation, according to one OECD report.
According to grocery giant Kroger, more than 100 billion single-use plastic bags are thrown away annually and 90% of those bags are never reused. Kroger, which includes Smith's stores in Utah, has committed to eliminating single-use plastic grocery bags from its family of stores, possibly as soon as 2025.
Davis said policies need to be carefully crafted. Some states and municipalities focus solely on plastic but are silent on paper. Some require paper bags made of a certain percentage of recycled product.
"The paper product has its own set of environmental impacts. To make a paper bag, it takes an enormous amount of water. The trucking costs associated with paper bags are double or triple what they are for plastic bags" due to their weight and bulk, Davis said.
"The best solution is a reusable bag. But that takes a cultural shift among shoppers and getting people who are willing to bring their bags and reuse them. We're not there right now," Davis said.
Per Denver's NBC affiliate KUSA, Fort Collins has experienced an 85% reduction in the use of disposable bags since enacting a bag fee in May, according to the city's senior sustainability specialist Holly Pummell.
"A lot of people, if they only have a couple of items, are like, 'I'm going to skip the bag,'" she said.
In Denver, people purchased 38 million bags after the fee was implemented in Colorado's capital city last summer.
Davis said it is doubtful that Utah will be taking cues from its neighbor to the east as the political characteristics of the two states have grown increasingly divergent.
In Colorado, the offices of governor, secretary of state, attorney general and both chambers of the state legislature are held by Democrats. Both of Colorado's U.S. senators are Democrats, as are four of its seven congressional representatives.
In Utah, the GOP controls both legislative houses, the governor's and attorney general's offices and all of its congressional seats.
"If you were to call me 10 years ago and tell me that Colorado is moving on that, I would have said, 'Yeah, that might move the needle here in Utah a little bit.' I'm not so sure anymore," Davis said.
In 2018, state lawmakers considered a bill that would have banned cities and counties from imposing fees on shopping bags, bottles, cans, cups or other containers — or even regulating them by, for example, banning plastic bags, as Park City has done. The bill, SB218, died in the House.
