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Plastic grocery bags now a no-no in Vail

VAIL – Single-use plastic bags will no longer be available at Vail’s two big grocery stories beginning Aug. 1. Paper bags will be used instead, but only at a cost of 10 cents a bag.

The law intends to nudge shoppers into taking their own bags to stuff in the lettuce and cantaloupe and, since this is Vail, sushi and other exotic items. Small bags for apples, bulk items and so forth will still be allowed.

The town is calling it the “Kick the Bag Habit” program. Stores can keep 20 percent of the money collected in bag sales for their costs. The rest will go to a town program that provides bags to visitors and residents.

The two grocery stores in town have been giving out an estimated 4,000 bags a year.

Communities and countries across the world have been cracking down on the proliferating plastic bags. The bags can be recycled, but a report for Los Angeles city government found that an estimated 5 percent of plastic bags in California and across the United States are recycled.

From 2003-07, the United States consumed roughly 400 billion single-use plastic carryout bags, according to a report given elected officials in Vail.

San Francisco outlawed plastic bags in 2007, Portland, Ore., in 2011, and Austin, Texas, in 2013. This month, single-use bags became illegal in all of Hawaii.

Telluride was first among ski and mountain towns of the West, banning plastic bags and adopting a fee on paper bags. Aspen and Carbondale followed in 2011.

Breckenridge took a different approach, levying a 10-cent fee on all bags at all stores.

Whistler has been working with grocery retailers in a six-month program in which the stores voluntarily charge consumers 5 cents per bags.

Vail chose to emulate Aspen, and by extension Telluride, but at a lower cost: 10 cents for paper bags, instead of 20 cents.

Some mountain towns have adopted bans but faced pushback from consumers. Basalt voters overturned a council ban on plastics. And Durango voted down a ban as well.

Mark Hoblitzell, a municipal staffer in Vail who did most of the homework required of elected officials, said the decision has been fairly well received. He said that of every 10 people he has talked with, eight have been supportive. The other two were quite upset.

Vail intends to next move into a program that eases other retail merchants out of the bag habit, but it first has to implement the existing ban.

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Mandatory composting & recycling rule

WHISTLER, B.C. – British Columbia makes little land available for landfills. Whistler, for example, ships its refuse by truck to Vancouver, where it is put on railroad cars for shipment to a landfill along the Columbia River.

This creates a direct economic incentive to compost and recycle. Whistler last year had a waste diversion rate of 54 percent – which would match the highest rate in Colorado, for example, Loveland, which is not a ski town.

But studies in Whistler find that a great amount of items that can be composted or recycled are still being shipped south to the U.S. border and across most of the state of Washington to be buried. Officials estimate that 41 percent of Whistler’s garbage could be diverted to a local composting facility and another 40 percent could be recycled.

With that in mind, Whistler is now looking to follow Vancouver, San Francisco, and other major municipalities along the West Coast by banning organic materials and recyclables from the trash stream.

Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden says current efforts have failed to divert significant amounts of waste from commercial operations and multi-family housing that can be either composted or otherwise recycled. Bins for both would be provided.  And failing to use the bins could provoke fines. Just how guilty parties will be detected has yet to be determined.

This, said Wilhelm-Morden, will reduce the amount of waste that is going to the landfill, which is a good thing and long overdue.”

One advantage of more waste diversion is that it will save the municipality $92,000 a year. Whistler is also tinkering with how to pass along those cost savings to customers.

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Antler arches good for 50 more years

JACKSON, Wyo. –Each corner of Jackson’s much-photographed town square is made of antlers – about 2,000 per corner, assembled around a steel arch.

On any given day, scores of visitors can be found standing next to the arches, admiring the handwork and taking photos.

The arches were first created 60 years ago using the 14,000-some elk racks shed each winter at the nearby National Elk Refuge.

However, a half-century of weather and high-elevation sunshine took a toll on the arches. In response, about 10 years ago, the local Rotary Club joined with the town to rebuild them. The fourth and final arch was completed in June.

Officials tell the News&Guide that the four arches together have 56,000 pounds of antlers and their current street value is $450,000.

Larry Pardee, director of public works, says the arches are icons that speak to the cultural tradition of Jackson and are somewhat of a brand logo. “I’m still impressed with how many people are taking pictures in front of the arches at any time of the year,” he said.

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Homeless people staying in Jackson Hole

JACKSON, Wyo. – Housing has been scarce in Jackson and Teton County for a long time. But coming out of the recession, the Jackson Hole News&Guide began reporting a tighter housing pinch than anyone could remember.

Since then, the vise has always increased – and summer is infinitely more busy in Jackson Hole than winter.

Outlying communities, such as Driggs and Victor, in nearby Idaho, have housing. This creates a slog of commuters from Jackson every day at about 5 p.m. to rival that of most cities. There’s a similar pulse of traffic along the Snake River to Alta, about 20 miles away.

But many people want to avoid these time-chewing commutes. The Jackson Hole News&Guide reports about a history teacher, David Wells, who had driven across Teton Pass perhaps 1,500 times over the years, mostly to go to work. He and his family liked their town in Idaho, but since April they have been living in a new house, co-developed by his employer, the school district, at Wilson, just 8 miles from their jobs in Jackson Hole.

“I used to spend eight 40-hour work weeks in a car during a school year,” Wells said. “That’s two months of time freed up to be with my child, go to the park or spend time with friends.”

“The quality of life is much higher because we are not commuting,” agreed his wife, Stefani Wells.

But others haven’t had the same option. There are many reports of people living in the woods. One woman, for example, has been curling up each night this summer with her dog at her forest camp site.

In April, a short documentary called “Postcards from Paradise” was released by Raul Gutierrez. The documentary tells the story of one of the homeless local employees, Gerson Giron, who took to living out of his SUV.

This begs the question of why Giron chose to remain in Jackson if housing is so scarce? The answer: because it is Shangri-La. “If I lived in Texas and something similar was going on there, I would have packed up and moved,” he said. “Jackson is so beautiful and inspires me to take pictures. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else:”

That’s also the story of Sam Green and Erica Hookland, with their yellow lab, Toots. They recently had a yard sale, to pare their possessions after rent went up more than what they could afford. He arrived in Jackson 15 years ago to ski, and she six years later after college.

“This is our home, just without a house, I guess,” said Hookland. “And it’s beautiful.”

– Allen Best

For more, go to www.mountaintownnews.net