Aspen Plastic Bag Ban Has Collected Over $44K In Just Over A Year

A 20-cent plastic bag fee imposed in one Colorado mountain town has really added up.

The City of Aspen has raised $44,826 in fees since the ban was put into place in May of 2012, according to a report by The Aspen Times.

Despite being a famous Colorado ski town, Aspen only has two grocery stores which were allowed to keep $1,000 of the money raised in the first year and an extra $100 each month following that.

The remainder of the money goes to a city-administered fund which is used to pay for outreach, implementation and a waste reduction program which supplies free reusable bags at Aspen's airport, car rental facilities, hotels and the city's Department of Environmental Health.

Vail, another ski town just about two hours southwest of Aspen, has looked to the town as it considers implementing its own plastic bag ban, along with Telluride and Steamboat Springs.

But the ban does not come without its challenges. The Mountain States Legal Foundation has a pending lawsuit against Aspen's bag ban, arguing that the plastic bag fee is actually a tax that's illegal under the state's Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR).