Will 2020 be the year Colorado bans plastic bags, Styrofoam and other single-use plastics?
The Town of Avon did something daring in January: It banned expanded polystyrene food containers, a.k.a. Styrofoam.
The move made the town the first community in Colorado to forbid such take-out food containers, which don’t do well in microwaves — or with trash recyclers.
But it also put them at odds with an obscure state law that prevents cities and towns from banning plastics. Avon’s Ordinance No. 19-11 wasn’t completely brazen, though. It was contingent on whether state lawmakers could overturn the 30-year-old statute.
A bill to repeal local preemption failed to make it out of a Senate committee last week.
Now the town is counting on a different measure. House Bill 1162 would also ban polystyrene, but at the state level. It also has the blessing — or at least no opposition — of some of the groups that opposed rolling back the preemption.
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