Westminster-based restaurant owner Ken Harrell, an NFIB member, penned a guest editorial for Colorado Politics on the punitive effects House Bill 1162 would have on small businesses such as his.

“HB 1162, dubbed a ‘Plastics Management’ bill would, if passed, prohibit restaurants from using the polystyrene take-out containers that literally kept us alive during the pandemic, as well as tax, before also eliminating, plastic grocery and take-out bags. This bill could not come at a worse time for our businesses and our workers.

“There is some understandable concern over the accumulation of waste in landfills, and of plastics in particular. But do we really think that the bulk of this global problem comes from local take-out containers and grocery bags? Containers that are mostly air in any case, but due to the miracles of modern science and technology are still strong and effective enough to keep food warm and not leak? Or grocery bags, which, while termed as ‘single use’ actually end up serving two, three, or more functions after they bring our groceries home, serving as garbage bags or lunch sacks, or any of a number of functions? Are these really a major societal problem for the government to solve?”

Read Harrell’s full editorial here.

Related Information

Poll of Small-Business Owners Shows No Mood for Plastics Ban

Takeaways 

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s largest and leading small-business association, asked its Colorado members, “Do you support statewide bans on certain single-use plastics like straws, shopping bags, trays, food containers, utensils and other legal products in Colorado?” The results were:
No, 87.6%
Yes, 10.3%
Und. 1.9%

“House Bill 1162 wouldn’t institute a ban, but it would lift the prohibition on local governments from having their own bans on certain plastic products, and polystyrene, which is worse because we’d be left with a crazy-quilt of unmanageable rules and regulations to comply with,” said Tony Gagliardi, NFIB’s Colorado state director. “At a time when every, single aspect of running an enterprise needs to be unfettered if we’re ever to economically recover, a plastics ban is a needless idea coming at the worst possible moment.”