The Gainesville City Commission voted 6 to 0 to move forward with banning single-use plastic bags and styrofoam.

Most residents attending Thursday’s city commission meeting supported the ban but others not so much.

“I’m also concerned as a senior citizen if you're going to take away my plastic bags,” Jack Carter, a Gainesville resident, said.

Carter says he stills wants to be able to choose what he carries his groceries in.

"I have to take multiple trips to my car to retrieve my packages to go into my home, these paper bags that you're going to put onto us, they burst easily,” he said.

The ordinance would ban plastic grocery store bags and styrofoam take-out containers.

“The environmental impact that it has is detrimental,” Stephanie Kelly, a supporter of the ban, said.

Kelly says she's glad for some change.

“It gets into our waterways, into our oceans, it also affects other animal wildlife,” she said.

There are a few exceptions to the ban including dog waste bags, plastic bags for newspapers, and styrofoam plates for meat products in grocery stores.

“Potential inconveniences for us and how it's going to affect us personally, but we also kinda forget that we share this planet with many other beings,” Kelly said.

Carter says a better alternative completely banning plastic bags.

"I'd rather see that we go to some type of fee that you purchase a plastic bag, five cents or whatever it is,” he said.

The first reading of the ordinance is scheduled for January 3rd. It will have to be read a second time before it could take effect in August of 2019.