PIERRE — The needs of businesses and rivers were at the heart of a discussion over whether South Dakota legislators should stop cities from banning plastic bags and straws.

The Senate Commerce and Energy Committee passed Senate Bill 54 in a 4-2 vote on Tuesday, and it'll now go to the full Senate for consideration. The bill prohibits local governments in South Dakota from banning plastic straws and "auxiliary containers" that include bags, cans, cups, bottles, packages and containers. During an hour-long committee meeting, senators heard about concerns about the impact the bill would have on businesses, the environment and people with disabilities.

Prohibiting cities from banning plastic bags and straws is needed because South Dakota is one large, spread-out small town, said bill sponsor Sen. John Wiik, R-Big Stone City. What is good for one small city should be good for all cities in South Dakota.

"Remember those of us from the small towns, the rural areas who live near these Class I communities. We don't get to participate in the ordinance of these towns, but we have very little choice in whether to participate in the commerce in these towns," he said.

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Rebecca Turk of Dakota Rural Action took issue with Wiik's characterization, saying farmers and ranchers also have problems with plastic that blows into their fields. Big cities don't want to be told what to do as much as small communities don't, she said.

Some need plastic straws

Sioux Falls resident Brett Glirbas, who has cerebral palsy, told the committee that bans on plastic straws don't take into consideration residents with disabilities.

Single-use plastic straws are safe and most cost effective for people with disabilities to use, he said via interpretation by his mother. With his reflex, he could bite down on a metal straw and injure himself, he said.

Paper straws don't hold up when he uses them so it takes two or three paper straws to drink one single beverage. People should be more environmentally friendly, but people shouldn't be taking actions that are discriminatory to citizens with disabilities.

"Some businesses in Sioux Falls already are requiring people to ask for straws so this creates an issue or a barrier for me," he said.

Local control

Although no elected city leaders testified about the bill, Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender tweeted last week that he was concerned the bill allows special interest groups to impact local control.

Several opponents of the bill noted that businesses are already starting to change their actions to reduce environmental impacts, and the bill wasn't needed.

Sen. Craig Kennedy, D-Yankton, also raised concerns that the bill would take away a city's ability to make decisions that are right for its needs. The bill isn't about plastics, but is instead about who gets to decide what's best for their community, he said. The city of Yankton should have the right to decide what's best for Yankton, and that may not be what's best for Pierre or Rapid City, he said.

"We have to operate a landfill. We have to take care of the environment in which we live. We certainly have to take care of the businesses that support our community," he said.

But Nathan Sanderson, executive director of the South Dakota Retailers Association, called the bill "less government." A number of businesses operate locations in multiple cities in South Dakota and having different requirements in different cities isn't good for business, he said.

The bill is "commonsense legislation," said Drew Duncan, lobbyist for the American Progressive Bag Alliance, which represents the plastic bag manufacturing industry. It provides clarity and allows businesses to buy plastic bags in bulk statewide, he said.

"Regulatory patchwork on products like that would create chaos for both manufacturers, shoppers, small business owners, people shipping products," he said.

Impact on the environment

Business owners are concerned about the environment, and no one wants trash and dirty rivers, Sanderson said. However, it's a "misnomer" to believe that a municipal plastics ban is going to clean up the oceans, he said.

Paul Lepisto, a lobbyist for the Izaak Walton League, said clean ups along the Missouri River result in "literally tons" of litter and debris being removed from the river, a majority of which is plastic and Styrofoam. The Big Sioux River had a "plastic forest" along its riverbanks last year after the flooding receded and the plastic garbage being brought downstream grew with each flood, according to Dana Loseke of the Friends of the Big Sioux River.

Holding up a reusable bag, Loseke said it will last several hundred trips to the store. But plastic bags will go into a landfill and "500 years from now, how many generations from now, your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandkids will be able to dig this up, and it'll still be there," he said.

Sen. Jeff Monroe, R-Pierre, said he doesn't agree that paper bags are more environmentally friendly than plastic bags. The chemicals that "hold that paper together" degrades into the ground, and plastic doesn't degrade as fast, he said.

"Every time I think about a plastic coffee can getting thrown in the river, it doesn't bother me at all because it sinks to the bottom, and it's habitat for bait fish, it's habitat for crayfish," he said.