Sen. Jennifer Veiga has a confession to make: She used plastic grocery bags.

But when a group of students recently asked her to carry a bill banning the bags, the Denver Democrat switched to canvas sacks. Veiga now believes it's only a matter of time before plastic bags are outlawed.

Her attempt to do that this year failed, however, when six Democrats joined with Republicans Tuesday to defeat Senate Bill 156, which would have required large retail stores to phase out plastic bags within three years.

Republicans argued that paper bags cause their own set of environmental problems and that certain stores should not be singled out.

"If it's good, we should do it for everybody," argued Sen. Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs.

"I think we ought to ban this bill and put it in a landfill," he added. "The people of Colorado must be scratching their heads on this issue. We have critical financial times and we are talking about plastic bags."

Veiga said the large stores her bill targeted distribute 542 million bags a year and account for 70 percent of the bags used in Colorado. Those bags, she said, create problems for the environment and wildlife.

She also noted that countries such as Uganda and China have outlawed the bags.

That was too much for Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield.

"There is an irony in citing a country like China for policy," Mitchell said. "What else has China banned? They've banned organized religious gatherings, they've banned having more than one child, they've banned political debate and speech, so it was probably pretty easy to pass their bans."

Mitchell said the public likes plastic bags because they're convenient and government shouldn't dictate what kind of bags people are using.

Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, said he was concerned that consumers would turn to paper sacks, not canvas. Studies show, he said, that it takes 91 percent less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than a pound of paper.

Veiga said her bill might be dead but the issue is not. "This is one of those issues that's going to be around for a number of years," she predicted.