Last straw for plastic
National conservation movement on menu at growing number of Denver-area restaurants that have thirst for Earth’s best interests
Lola Coastal Mexican restaurant draws customers with the aroma of Mexican food and the promise of more than 200 tequilas to strengthen its margaritas on a hot summer day. While diners can have their margaritas with salt and a side of chips and salsa, one thing they won’t be served with is a plastic straw.
Upon arrival, customers of the Highland Park neighborhood restaurant are greeted by a message that is becoming more common in the Denver area: Straws by request.
“Eliminating straws is a no-brainer,” said Dave Query, the owner of Lola’s parent restaurant company, Big Red F. “If every restaurant in the U.S. were to embrace this, from McDonald’s to The French Laundry, it would have a really dramatic effect.”
Lola is like a host of other businesses in Denver and across the state that are policing themselves as part of a conservation movement that is gaining momentum across the country.
At the beginning of the month, Seattle instituted a citywide ban on plastic straws
and utensils in restaurants, and just days after that Starbucks announced that it will replace its disposable straws with recyclable, straw-less lids by 2020. Marriot International, Hyatt Hotels, Hilton Hotels, American Airlines and university food-service provider Bon Appetite also are following suit, phasing out the plastic straws that are too small and lightweight to be easily recycled and transitioning to more sustainable alternatives.
“A lot of folks have been moving toward that for a long time,” said Carolyn Livingston, communications director of the Colorado Restaurant Association. “Trying to be a hospitable organization is what restaurants are all about. As customers want more sustainable options, restaurants are moving toward providing them.”
The restaurants also are resorting to plastic substitutes made of paper, or in the case of Bar Helix in RiNo, copper straws. Most establishments keep a small inventory of plastic straws on hand, however, to accommodate disabled customers for whom they work best.
The straw debate is another layer to the larger environmental conversation that has circulated across the state and nation for years. It began decades ago with recycling, moved to plastic bags and has evolved to what it is now, gaining traction in 2015 with a viral video of marine biologists fishing a straw out of a turtle’s nose.
In the interim in Colorado, there has been much confusion stemming from an obscure and ambiguous 1993 statute that may prohibit Seattle-like bans. But even the state is unsure how to enforce it.
Americans use 500 million plastic straws every day, according to the Plastic Pollution Coalition, a nonprofit that works to draw attention to plastic’s environmental impact. National Geographic reports that of the 8.3 billions tons of plastic waste produced since the 1950s, only 9 percent has been recycled — the rest ending up in the world’s oceans and landfills.
At this rate, experts say that by 2050 the oceans’ plastic waste will outweigh fish, and landfills will contain 12 billion tons of plastic.To put that number in perspective, that’s the same as 35,000 Empire State Buildings.
Straws, of course, are responsible for only a small percentage of overall plastics waste. But, like plastic bags before them, they are seen by activists as symbols of an increasingly polluted society that can easily be replaced with more sustainable alternatives.
“The straws I think are really an icon, the canary in the coal mine that points to a bigger problem,” said Harlin Savage, director of communications at the Boulder-based recycling nonprofit Eco-Cycle. “It’s not just the straws. The straws are an emblematic of this much larger problem.”
The plastics industry, not surprisingly, has a different point of view.
“There are other environmental impacts to think of,” said Mia Freis Quinn, vice president of communications for the Plastics Industry Association. “Plastic products are lighter and more efficient than many alternatives which reduces their environmental footprint by reducing waste, energy use and carbon emissions. Investing in more comprehensive solutions to the challenges facing waste management and recycling will have a far greater impact on litter than a ban.”
In recent years, some Colorado communities — the majority being moun- tain towns such as Aspen, Crested Butte and Vail — have implemented a 10- to 20-cent disposable bag fee or banned single-use plastic grocery bags entirely. Since Aspen put a paper-bag fee in place six years ago, it has generated nearly $300,000.
When Aspen first began discussing banning plastic bags and putting fees on paper bags, some residents grumbled about the inconvenience of purchasing reusable bags. After a year, the city hears few complaints, said Liz Chapman, Aspen’s senior environmental health specialist.
The same has held true in the other mountain communities.
Nevertheless, bag bans and disposable bag fees — along with policies like Seattle’s straw and utensil prohibition — may be subject in Colorado to a littleknown 1993 statute that appears to prohibit local governments from outlawing plastic materials.
The rule in question is tucked into larger legislation dealing with recycling:
It reads: “No unit of local government shall require or prohibit the use or sale of specific types of plastic materials or products or restrict or mandate containers, packaging, or labeling for any consumer products.”
While the legislation falls under the purview of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, no means of enforcement has been established in the decades since its passage.
“While the statute pertains to waste division and recycling (which is under CDPHE’s purview), there’s not really an authority or enforcement mechanism tied to it,” Meghan Hughes, a spokesperson for the public health department’s hazardous materials and waste management division, said in an email. “If asked, we’d likely advise any jurisdiction looking to consider banning a plastic such as straws, plastic bags, etc., to consult with their attorney on the potential implications.”
Essentially, the state isn’t likely to crack down on municipalities that pass a bag ban. But the statute could allow residents or advocacy groups to sue the towns, Hughes said.
But Chapman said the lack of reference to the statute during a recent Colorado Supreme Court case against Aspen indicates to her the law doesn’t hold much water.
In May, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in favor of Aspen and its 20-cent paper-bag surcharge. The Colorado Union of Taxpayers, a conservative nonprofit, sued the city and its elected officials in August 2012, insisting Aspen had imposed a “sin tax” without voter approval. The court decided that the fee was not subject to Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights.
The court’s ruling didn’t clarify the law, thus doing little to give municipalities a clear picture of what they can and can’t do.
Telluride town attorney Keith Geiger, who reviewed the statute when the town was considering its bag ban in 2011, said the law refers to waste diversion and recycling. He said its categorization under recycling makes it clear to him that it was intended to prevent municipalities from restricting recycling efforts rather than preventing the regulation of specific plastic materials.
Denver attorney David Lane, a partner at Kilmer, Lane and Newman, said there is no ambiguity to the statute despite its age. “It’s plain words, and it has a plain meaning.”
To him, the legal framework is clear: Cities aren’t allowed to institute bans on plastic straws or bags.
That’s what city leaders in Avon thought too, but that didn’t stop them from going forward with their own ban in 2017.
“(The town council) was aware of that statute and advised by (legal) council, but we decided as a homerule town to go ahead anyway,” said Avon town manager Preston Neill.
In 2013, the Sierra Club’s Rocky Mountain Chapter pushed for a bill in the Colorado General Assembly that would repeal the convoluted language. It died in committee.
During the 2018 session, House Democrats attempted to address the bag issue with a bill that would require grocers to collect a 25-cent flat tax from anyone using plastic bags, no matter the number. It died in committee.
Despite those setbacks, it doesn’t appear the conversation about how to deal with waste, and plastic waste in particular, is going to ebb anytime soon.
“There is power in the collective voice,” said former Telluride councilman Chris Myers. “And I think that voice needs to be heard.”