Last summer I took the family hiking up the Boulder flat irons, Rocky Mt. Nat. Pk., Mesa Verde, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and many spots along the way. We carried canteens (gallon jugs in the car), but I could count the number of expended water bottles that we saw on one hand. Those appeared to be accidental drops over developed overviews.
Can’t say I saw a trash problem. As for cutting down on the amount of trash to carry out of parks, I’m thinking water containers should be at the bottom of the list. People need to hydrate.
I do think this will result in a fair amount of dehydration, as people who visit the parks are VISITORS, and don’t know how much water they need in dry, high elevations.
They should at least offer affordable canteen rigs if that is what they want to push.
LL Bean sells quart Nalgene bottles for ten bucks. I imagine more cheaply-made refillable bottles will cost that much once the tourist-trap concessionare markup is applied.
So a family unaware of the ban on disposable bottles will be looking at ten dollars per liter instead of two to three bucks or so per liter for disposables. Which means a family won't be thinking about taking enough water for a hike, but what they can afford at ten dollars per pop.
Stupid. This does nothing to address bottles brought in from outside the park, and can't. It will end up causing some people to get dehydrated because of the cost per liter of a refillable bottle bought on the spot. Typical liberal shortsightedness, putting their liberal 'sustainability' concepts ahead of the well-being of individual humans.