Plans to roll out fees on plastic bags this summer in Denver are being derailed by the novel coronavirus. 

Denver City Council is expected to delay the implementation of the city’s plastic and paper bag fee – which was unanimously approved in December and expected to take effect in July – to Jan. 1, 2021.

“It is not a good time to be working on this now,” Councilwoman Kendra Black, who led the ordinance, told Colorado Politics in an email. “It is the right thing to do.”

Right now, she said, city leaders and staff are busy focusing on issues related to COVID-19 and “are not able to design and implement the education and marketing campaign required to kick off the Bring Your Own Bag effort.”

Also fueling the need for a delay, Black said, are concerns that shoppers’ bags brought from home aren’t as sanitary as single-use bags.

By pushing back the implementation by six months, she said City Council will be given the time needed “to ride out the crisis and to roll out the effort the right way.”

City Council will need to pass a new ordinance to adjust the timeline, but Black doesn’t yet know when the new proposal will be heard by the Finance and Governance Committee, a step required before the bill advances to a vote by the full council.

The ordinance charges consumers 10 cents for every plastic or paper bag used to take home their goods and groceries. Retailers will keep 4 cents from every grocery bag sold, and the city will pocket the rest.

An estimated 250 million bags are used by Denver residents every year, according to the city.

If consumption of single-use bags reduces by half, the city will generate about $7.5 million in revenue. 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.

Black has called the measure “a first step,” and is considering another proposal that would target Styrofoam-like material, plastic coffee stirrers, straws and utensils.