Danny Katz
Executive Director, CoPIRG
Executive Director, CoPIRG
CoPIRG
CoPIRG is calling on members of the House Energy and Environment Committee to pass two major bills today that will reduce single-use plastic waste and pollution in Colorado.
HB20-1162 sponsored by Representatives Cutter and Singer, Senators Story and Foote – Sets a floor for take-out food containers, plates and cups by eliminating a type of single-use plastic, expanded polystyrene (a soft plastic foam), that is particularly harmful because it endangers our health, is not recyclable, and crumbles apart easily polluting our environment.
HB20-1163 sponsored by Representatives Sirota and A. Valdez, Senator Gonzales – Sets a floor for other single-use plastics by phasing out millions of single-use plastic bags and stirrers, as well as institutes a straws upon request model in food establishments. These kinds of plastics are often unnecessary, hard to recycle, and bad for our environment. (Currently the bill also includes take-out containers but that will be amended out).
“Many forms of single-use plastics are unnecessary and wasteful and we don’t need them. They pollute our waterways and parks, harm our health and wildlife, and take centuries to break down. Nothing we use once to carry food or a beverage for a few minutes should harm our state for hundreds of years. These major bills phase out some of the worst single-use plastics,” said Danny Katz CoPIRG director.
There are a number of problems with unnecessary single-use plastics: