The clock is ticking on Dave Allen’s Challenge

Eco-entrpreneur and Telluride Outside fly fishing guide David Allen leads The Challenge, a friendly competition among 31 participating mountain towns to reduce consumption of single-use bags.

Why should we care? Here's the fact of the week:

Research says that each plastic shopping bag requires .005 gallons of oil to produce. At a consumption rate of 100 billion per year, the United States uses 12 million barrels of oil each year to sustain its plastic bag habit.  Even with the price of oil hovering around $40 a barrel, a five-year low, Americans will spend nearly half a billion dollars on plastic shopping bags this year.