Remember our blog back in 2009 about Colorado ski towns Telluride and Aspen? The residents battled to see who would hold bragging rights over using the most reusable bags for shopping—and earn new solar panels for its high school. That original competition resulted in the 2009 Colorado Association of Ski Towns (CAST) Reusable Bag Challenge.
Why are we writing about this two years later? The town that won the Reusable Bag Challenge just debuted a new $50,000 solar power system at its middle school—a system that was created because of the town’s victory back in 2009.
Basalt took first place in the contest between 32 mountain towns in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and Idaho. The town with the highest per-capita reusable grocery bag use rate at the grocery store was awarded $10,000 to build a solar power system. Participating stores in each town tallied the amount of people who came in with their own reusable bag for shopping during a six-month period between March and September, 2009. Basalt won by eliminating 48 plastic bags per person during the contest, according to the Community Office for Resource Efficiency.
The town of Basalt, through its “Green Team,” then applied for more grants through various sources and raised an additional $40,000. The additional funds were put toward making the solar installation larger. That photovoltaic system is now projected to produce 13,000 kilowatts-hours per year of electricity.
As the solar installation will be on Basalt Middle School grounds, the system includes a monitoring component that will allow students to see in real time how much power is being generated. The solar system could also be incorporated into math and science curriculum.
Want more reason to cheer? Basalt town officials are now considering legislation to discourage and ultimately ban the plastic and paper disposable bags given away at the grocery store.
