If you frequent local restaurants and businesses in Telluride, you may notice something missing: single-use plastic.
“Mainly what’s changing is related to food service and things related to food service. But it’s not solely that,” said Darin Graber, Sustainability and Grant Administrator for the Town of Telluride. “It also applies to some things you might not expect. Toothpicks can’t be wrapped in single-use plastic, and cotton swabs with plastic stems are prohibited under this ordinance.”
In 2022, the Telluride Town Council passed an ordinance to ban single-use plastic within the town, with implementation set for July 1, 2024.
Under the ordinance, single-use plastic containers, including Styrofoam cups, bowls, and plates, are prohibited. Plastic straws, cutlery, condiment packets, stirrers, and garnish spears are also banned. Additionally, single-use plastic water bottles under one gallon are not allowed. The ordinance further requires customers at restaurants and businesses to request cutlery or napkins, rather than receiving them automatically.
There are exceptions to the ordinance for fire, EMS, and law enforcement if single-use plastic is needed in an emergency situation or during a town-wide emergency or natural disaster. Single-use plastic will also be allowed for medical use.
Single-use plastic may still be seen at grocery stores in prepackaged items from large distributors or when related to food safety.
“So obviously we’re going to have milk cartons or a plastic bottle of milk. The things we need to change are the items that we’re serving over the counter. If I have a raw ingredient in my hand and I need to put it in something to give to a customer, that receptacle needs to be compostable,” said Chris Jackman, store director at Clark’s Market in Telluride.
Jackson says there have been a number of changes at the store since the ban went into effect, but he’s up for the task.
“It does seem a little daunting at the beginning, especially when you start making a list of all the things that need to be changed over,” he said. “But there are a lot of suppliers that provide those items.”
The main challenge, Jackman says, is getting vendors to stock items specific to Telluride.
“Because they service a larger community. They’re servicing Telluride, Norwood, Ridgway, Montrose, and Grand Junction. So to have these niche items for Telluride can be difficult, but I haven’t talked to anyone who is not supportive of it,” he said.
Jackman adds that with increased demand for eco-friendly products, he anticipates potential supply chain issues, including certain products being out of stock.
Despite the shifts or any potential challenges for the market, Jackman says he’s supportive of the ban.
“To have such a small community like Telluride be a role model for the rest of Colorado and the rest of the United States is a great move for us,” he said.
But not everyone is fully convinced.
“Our business is a to-go business, and we’ve been using compostable cups since we bought it in 2020,” says Scott Keating, part-owner of the Coffee Cowboy. “So for our to-go cup scene, nothing has changed.”
Keating isn’t against compostable cups—the Coffee Cowboy has been using them since the beginning—but he’s skeptical of their environmental benefit.
For compostable cups to properly break down, they require an industrial composting process—something the Telluride region is working toward but does not yet have readily available.
Some research has shown that compostable materials can still take years to break down in a landfill, and as they do, they can emit the greenhouse gas methane.
“It’s great in theory, if we’re actually composting it,” Keating says “But to put all that energy in to something that’s actually worse for the environment, it doesn’t make sense. At the end of the day I feel like we’re greenwashing to make ourselves feel better.”
Keating isn’t against the ordinance, but he wants to see the conversation continue.
“This is a great first step. I’m not trying to sh*t on it,” Keating says.
“I’m trying to be a realist of if we want to think of wide scale problems and think it through, let’s not do it 20%. Let’s really think about them.”
For Keating, it’s about a culture shift. To that point, Graber agrees.
“Trying to really push toward a different mindset of refuse, reuse, then think about recycling, then think about everything else,” says Graber. “Shifting people’s habits might seem like a big deal, but I think in a year or two it’ll be so normal, and we can push to a much more sustainable lifestyle than the consumption based lifestyle we have nationally.”
A national culture shift to zero waste may be a big goal, but Telluride is trying to do its part—one cup at a time.
Copyright 2024 KOTO.
This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including Aspen Public Radio.
