Ok, Telluride – it's time to kick Aspen's you-know-what by showing just how eco-conscious we are here and using reusable shopping bags instead of plastic bags.
The Town of Telluride and Mountain Village are competing with Aspen to reduce plastic bag consumption. For each reusable shopping bag used by customers at participating grocers, the grocers will contribute 5 cents to the "Greenfund." The community that raises the most money, per capita, will receive
bragging rights and solar monitor sets for the
winning municipality's public school system.
The competition, which will run from Memorial Day to July 4, is designed to raise awareness of the environmental and social costs of plastic shopping bags. Plastic bags require petroleum – a very limited natural resource – for production, are a significant component of litter and harm to marine life because they often end up in streams, fields and oceans and they never biodegrade.
Yes, they are recyclable, but very few are actually recycled. Only 1 to 5 percent of plastic bags are actually recycled, according to research conducted by the County of Los Angeles in 2007. This is mostly due to the problems of sorting, the low quality of plastic used in the bags and the lack of cost efficiency due to a lack of a suitable market for the recycled resin.
The Sheep Mountain Alliance and the New Community Coalition, two Telluride-based environmental organizations, are strongly encouraging people to try living without using plastic shopping bags. If even one person uses one reusable bag for one year, that individual will reduce the number of plastic shopping bags by almost 500.
Add your comments...