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Vail Town Council exploring a ban on single-use plastics

'We could make a big dent by doing this,' says former mayor following a presentation from sustainability intern at Walking Mountains along with a junior at Vail Mountain School

An aerial view of the Eagle County Materials Recovery Facility in Wolcott shows a load of recyclable materials ready to be sorted.
Special to the Daily

The Vail Town Council on Tuesday is scheduled to listen to a presentation and provide feedback on a potential ban of single-use plastics in town.

Town staff, according to a memo issued Friday, is expected to explain to the council the steps needed to implement a ban, including community outreach, working with the town’s attorney to draft an ordinance, and sending that ordinance to the town’s Planning and Environmental Commission.

From there, the council would itself need to approve the ordinance as well, and then a marketing campaign would be likely to follow, as well as a collaboration effort to develop more water bottle refill stations around town and ensure that businesses have the resources needed to comply. To that end, town staff suggested a possible grant program could be implemented, pending funding.



When and how the program should be funded are some of the question marks on the town staff’s clipboard at the moment. Staff plans on asking the council if funds allocated for implementation of environmental measures through the Vail Local Marketing District Advisory Council should be used, and whether those funds should be placed on the town’s budget for 2025.

‘It’s time to do this’

But before any of that is discussed, the council will need to reiterate its intention to indeed go forward with the idea, and indicate what single-use plastics it intends to ban.

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At a meeting on Sept. 17, the council heard from Aidan Kinsley, a sustainability intern at Walking Mountains, along with Declan Cunningham, a junior at Vail Mountain School, who said that Vail is a good place to institute a single-use plastics ban because the town has instituted other ordinances regarding sustainability. Cunningham and Kinsley pointed to the town’s 2014 recycling ordinance and the town’s 2015 plastic bag ban as examples.

“There’s actually global recognition of this community as a sustainability leader,” Kinsley said.

Kinsley said one thing many locals don’t realize is single-use “Solo-style” cups are not recyclable in Vail and make up a significant percentage of landfill waste.

Cunningham said when a similar ban went into effect in Frisco, the town received pushback from grocery stores in towns, something Vail can learn from.

“Safeway, Walmart and Whole Foods were fairly angry about this ban because they said that 12-ounce plastic water was their No. 1 revenue product,” Cunningham said. “The solution to this is we’re not banning water in 12 ounces, we’re just banning what the container is being held in.”

Members of the council, following Kinsley and Cunningham’s presentation, indicated they would be supportive of instituting a ban on single-use plastics.

“I think it’s time to do this,” said Town Council member Jonathan Staufer.

Starting with water bottles

Council Member Dave Chapin mentioned a recent New York Times article that drew attention to the practice of mass balance accounting, a practice that allows companies “to build up credits for recycling plastic and then apply them to the manufacture of any number of products, regardless of how much recycled material they contain,” the Times wrote.

Mass balance accounting is used by Eastman Chemical, which supplies popular outdoor brands like CamelBak and Nalgene. Eastman Chemical uses the German-based organization International Sustainability and Carbon Certification to certify its claim that its products contain up to 50% recycled plastic, but six of the seven board members of ISCC “come from the chemical or fuel industries, including Eastman, Dow and BP,” the Times reported.

Chapin said the report has inspired him to consider the single-use plastic ban in Vail.

“We could make a big dent by doing this,” Chapin said.

Town staff, in the memo issued Friday, recommended council ban single-use plastic water bottles less than a gallon in size; ban single-use plastic cutlery, straws and single-use plastic cups; and make single-use plastic service ware by request only.

In the near term, those items would have the most impact, town staff said, adding that other plastic and single-use service items can always be included in the future.

The council is scheduled to hear the single-use plastic ordinance presentation Tuesday at its afternoon meeting, which begins at 1 p.m.


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