Paper or plastic?

I’ve often answered that question from grocery store clerks and other cash register rangers with a wisecrack: “I paid with plastic so let’s be consistent.”

But my habits might be about to change, courtesy of the Denver City Council. It supports a measure that would require retail stores to charge customers 10 cents for a plastic bag. Other cities that have imposed the fee have seen a big reduction in the use of plastic bags, Councilwoman Kendra Black said.

I confessed to Black that I definitely have an anti-environmental love affair with plastic bags. I’m free to continue to ruin Mother Earth, the councilwoman assured me, but it will cost me. A dime bag! But a different kind of one!

I’m always amazed at people in line who pull out cloth bags. They apparently are blessed with a gene that allows them to remember to put those bags back in the car for their next trip.

But the most interesting thing about the proposed ordinance, which is expected to take affect on July 1, is how little resistance there is to it. Convenience stores and supermarket chains are on board. So is everyone on the council and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock.

What would have at one time been ridiculed as a “nanny state” measure is now seen as an “about time” move. A number of countries, some deemed third-world — or “sh–holes” by one president’s standard — have already taken steps to either ban or reduce the use of plastic bags.

“The world has changed,” Black said. “There’s now an acknowledgement that there is a problem with plastic bags because they don’t compose. They never go away.”

She told her constituents at a town hall meeting last October about her plastic-bag proposal. She was prepared for backlash, but instead got back slapping.

The irony, Black said, is plastic bags originally were seen as a sign of progress. Save a tree! Don’t use paper bags!

Grocery chains Kroger and Safeway replaced their paper bags with plastic in 1982, and others soon followed, according to various articles on the Internet. Plastic bags were cheaper than paper bags, and more convenient.

The environmental concerns, with plastic bags and bottles and other products intended to be tossed after use, wouldn’t be realized until much later.

Bangladesh was one of the first countries to ban the use of plastic and polythene bags, in 2002, after discovering they blocked drains during massive flooding.

National Geographic has reported on how tons of trash litter a tiny uninhabited beach in the Pacific.

Regularly there are stories on “ocean trash,” the 5.25 trillion tons of debris in the oceans, some on the surface some in the deep sea.

Black said when she and fellow Councilwoman Stacie Gilmore toured the city’s landfill, compost and recycling facilities, they were told that plastic bags are the No. 1 problem at each operation.

“Do you know that people put plastic bags in recycling bins?” Black said.

Yes, I do know because over the years, despite lecture after lecture, my roommates repeatedly threw plastic bags in my purple recycling bin that I wheeled to the curb on collection day. The city would leave me a note, saying the bags ruin the recycling machines.

This isn’t the first time Denver has considered having customers pay for plastic bags. Denver City Councilwoman Debbie Ortega in 2013 proposed charging a nickel a bag, a measure that initially got the support of the majority of the council. But some supporters peeled off when Hancock expressed concerns about the impact on low-income residents.

The city at the time also was grappling with “dumping.” Contractors illegally put their trash in large alley dumpsters. Neighborhoods on Denver’s borders were hit with out-of-town residents dropping off their trash to avoid paying collection fees in their municipalities.

“I ended up withdrawing my measure, and the city ended up getting rid of those alley dumpsters, and went to individual black wheeled carts for households,” Ortega said. “That helped with the dumping problem.”

But so much has changed in the six years since she introduced her proposal.

“We’re not getting the pushback we once did,” Ortega said. “And we have strong support across the board.”

But not everybody’s in love with the idea. Some have sounded off on Next Door, a social networking service for neighborhoods that often focuses on strangers walking down the street and dog poop — another plastic bag issue in its own way.

“This isn’t about helping reduce plastic at all, if it were City Council would just ban plastic bags all together,” one person wrote. “This is purely to raise more revenue for the city.”

The money isn’t for some slush fund for the city. It will be used to to educate Denverites and to provide cloth bags or other alternatives for shoppers. The amount collected is expected to shrink over the years.

In other words, the money will be spent to try to get people like me to do the right thing. I don’t mind at all.

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