Despite public support, polystyrene container ban falls short in Colorado Senate
The Colorado Senate missed its chance to put the state on a path to move beyond plastic.
The Colorado Senate missed its chance to put the state on a path to move beyond plastic.
Despite earning more than 23,000 favorable public comments from Coloradans, a bill to ban single-use polystyrene containers failed to pass the Senate before the state legislative session ended on May 3.
“It’s frustrating to know how close we came and to not get called up for a vote,” said CoPIRG State Director Danny Katz. “Coloradans should not have to accept that the cost of taking a smoothie to go or ordering food to our home means we have to use a container that will last past the year 2519—littering our communities, polluting our waterways, harming our wildlife and health, and driving up the cost of our recycling efforts.”
Nationwide, our network has introduced similar bills in 13 states, and CoPIRG doesn’t intend to give up on a ban here in Colorado. “We will be back in 2020,” promised Danny.
Photo: Coloradans throw out an estimated 1 million polystyrene cups every day, like the cups pictured above that volunteers pulled from the South Platte River during a cleanup in October. Photo Credit: Phillip Huffeldt, Wool Hat Creative
