Hundreds of laws and ordinances across the country ban or tax plastic bags – including in 11 Colorado municipalities – and Denver could be next. 

An estimated 250 million bags are used by Denver residents every year, according to the city. But thanks to unanimous approval of a proposed ordinance during a City Council Finance and Governance Committee meeting Tuesday, consumers may be charged as early as July 1, 2020, a dime for every plastic or paper bag they use to carry home their goods and groceries.

“This is just a first step” said Councilwoman Kendra Black, who is leading the bill alongside council members Stacie Gilmore, Deborah Ortega and Jolon Clark. “It is time for Denver to do this. But we need to do more.” 

The proposal would give retailers 4 cents from every grocery bag sold, and the city would pocket the other 60%.

This isn’t the first time the city’s considered a grocery bag tax or ban. In 2013, Ortega sponsored a measure that would have charged consumers a nickel for every non-reusable paper or plastic bag used at food stores.

But Ortega’s bill failed after Mayor Michael Hancock threatened to veto it because “he felt at the time it would negatively and disproportionately impact low-income residents,” spokeswoman Theresa Marchetta wrote in an email.

Again in 2018, City Council considered an outright ban on plastic bags, but chose to table the measure until they had support from the state legislature.

Black said she’s been assured by Colorado lawmakers that her proposed ordinance will have backing in the upcoming legislative session. In 2020, state policymakers plan to repeal a 1993 state statute, she said, which served as the basis of a 2012 lawsuit by the Colorado Union of Taxpayers against the City of Aspen over a 20-cent paper bag fee.

“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,” the statute reads.

However, the legal challenge ultimately died in 2018, when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled the two dimes collected were a fee, not a tax.

Black’s proposal also has the support of Hancock, Marchetta said, although he personally prefers a ban.

“The mayor has always been more supportive of a ban, but he listened to advocates and heard a fee is more impactful to promote behavior change first,” she said. “He sees this as a step.”

Stakeholders supporting the measure include the Colorado-Wyoming Petroleum Marketers, Colorado Retail Council and the Downtown Denver Partnership, among several others.

Plastic bags take more than 500 years to decompose and are the second-most-common litter item collected along local areas like Cherry Creek and the Platte River –  so why not ban them completely?

The answer, according to the city, lies in examples set by other municipalities, including Chicago, which initially passed a ban on single-use plastic bags in 2015 but repealed the ban a year later after not seeing a significant reduction in usage.

Instead, Chicago implemented a 7-cent tax that resulted in an approximately 40% decrease in non-reusable bags.

People experience loss more than gains, so having to pay a small fee for something they considered free motivated them into using their own bag or no bag at all, Black said.

At least eight states – California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Oregon and Vermont – have banned outright the use of plastic bags, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Denver’s dime fee matches the City of Boulder’s, which saw a 70% reduction “immediately following” the implementation of the bag fee, although the trend “leveled off quickly,” according to the city.

As of early 2018, Boulder raked in more than a million dollars since the fee went into effect in 2013.

If Denver reduced the quarter-million bags used annually by 70%, the city would generate an estimated $2.25 million. Revenue jumps to $7.5 million if single-use bags are cut by half.

That money will be used for program education and marketing, free reusable bag giveaways through retailers, schools and city agencies, waste reduction efforts, and administrative and enforcement costs.

The upfront costs, to be reimbursed after fees are collected, will include an advertising campaign, giveaway bags and the staff needed to conduct the giveaways, as well as agency assistance for implementation, which will require the hiring of a program coordinator.

City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposal Dec. 16 and is positioned to vote on the measure Dec. 23. The proposed ordinance is likely to pass with support from 11 of 13 members. If passed, the fee is expected to go into effect mid-2020, and a task force will be formed the following year.