I miss plastic grocery bags | From the Editor

A recent trip to the grocery store was eye-opening, but the revelation was a couple of years too late.

I bought meat packaged in shrink wrap. I bought soda and juice in plastic bottles. Cereal is less expensive when purchase in resealable plastic bags. Many freezer items like fish sticks, pizza and tater tots are packaged in plastic. Milk comes in plastic jugs. Bread is in plastic bags. Fresh produce is put in plastic bags. Bulk produce is also in plastic bags (potatoes, carrots, apples, oranges etc.). Actually, most everything I purchased was wrapped in plastic or encased in a plastic container.

I went to the register to pay. I could either purchase paper bags or use bags (infused with plastics, BTW) that I have to carry around with me. The plastic grocery bags we used for years are not available. We’re doing this to save the environment.

Horse hockey.

The Colorado ban on single-use plastic grocery bags was passed in 2001 and took full effect on Jan. 1, 2024. It also banned polystyrene, which I don’t think any of us miss.

The term “single-use” is misleading. I already was recycling my grocery bags. I used them as doggy poop bags. I used them as trash bags in my car (the “handle” of the bag held it in place by looping it over the shifter). I used them as lunch bags. I used them to line the trash can in my bathroom. I used them to bring home my sweaty gym clothes.

Now, I buy doggie poop bags and trash bags for my car. Both are still made of plastic and these bags, unlike the grocery bags, are truly “single use.” Every plastic bag, wrapper or container that my groceries came in were single use.

During a news conference hosted by Environment Colorado, advocates for the ban on plastic grocery bags not only talked about the impact of disposable plastics on landfills and oceans, but they also claimed plastics contribute to climate change.

So why grocery bags and not all of the other plastic involved in a routine visit to the grocers?

It’s not realistic. Our legislators knew this when they banned the bags. They knew this wasn’t going to make a real difference.

And the polystyrene? Restaurants still offer to-go containers. Some of these are paper but most are still plastic. They are not considered “single use” under the law because they are thicker.

So let me get the logic on that. Using more plastic is more environmentally responsible because they are technically reusable? Do you reuse you restaurant takeout containers? Even if you do, with the rising popularity of Door Dash and other delivery services, there are exponentially more takeout containers being used.

It doesn’t make sense because this was political theater, not a sincere effort to save the environment. It’s also yet another experiment in social engineering.

“Our goal is to change behavior,” Lisa Cutter, one of the sponsors of House Bill 21-1162 said when she introduced the bill.

So, yes, our behavior has changed. We buy other plastics to replace the plastics they banned. We carry around a bunch of reusable bags. We still bring home a bunch of plastic with every trip to the grocery store, though.

Cutter went on to admit that this wasn’t going to make a substantive impact on the environment, saying it was time to “chip away at the use of plastics.”

Senate Republicans in 2025 put forth an array of bills that they said would save Colorado families an average of $4,500 per year. They targeted for repeal laws on grocery bag fees, cage-free eggs, retail delivery fees, garbage disposal fees, gas and electricity fees, passenger ride and car rental fees, two previous laws that they claimed raised rental prices, and a bill to reform construction defects. None of those measures was adopted.

“We had hopes to make life more affordable,” said then-Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen of Monument.

The effort fell flat. How dare they try to drop the curtain on our political theater.