A Senate committee will hear a bill that allows coastal communities with a population of fewer than 100,000 to establish a pilot program to regulate or ban the use of disposable plastic bags.

By Isadora Rangel of TCPalm

TALLAHASSEE — California wants to do it; Hawaii is doing it; but Florida still prohibits it.

A local government that wants to restrict the use of plastic bags is prohibited under Florida law from doing so, even though those bags can choke marine life, breed mosquitoes and clog flood control systems.

That could change under a bill that cleared a Senate committee Wednesday.

The legislation pushed by activists allows coastal cities with less than 100,000 residents to create a two-year pilot program to regulate the use of plastic bags. The cities could restrict or ban the bags.

Treasure Coast communities from Jupiter Island to Sebastian could qualify for the program, but no one has considered taking action, so the One Florida Foundation will be lobbying local officials to do so if the bill becomes law, foundation director Nyla Pipes said. The nonprofit environmental organization often finds plastic bags during cleanups of local waterways, such as Moores Creek in Fort Pierce, which flows into the Indian River Lagoon, Pipes said.

While it might be inconvenient not to have bags for your groceries, Pipes said Florida needs to go through a "paradigm change" as did progressive states such as California, where the legislature imposed a statewide ban in 2014. The ban is on hold pending a ballot referendum in November. All Hawaii counties prohibit stores from handing out plastic bags at checkout, although there's a loophole that allows reusable plastic bags.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce, the lead business lobbying organization, opposes SB 306 and its companion HB 143 because it would increase costs for businesses and consumers. Other pro-business critics also said if the Legislature wants to tackle the issue it should do so on a statewide basis instead of leaving it up to small communities because plastic bags can travel from one community to another.

Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, said he's against increased business regulations and was the only dissenting vote in the Environmental Preservation and Conservation Committee, which approved the bill 8-1 Wednesday. He also questioned whether the state should leave it up to businesses to stop using plastic bags.

Yet plastic bags still are cheaper for businesses, therefore regulations would be the only way to make a change, said Sen. Dwight Bullard, the Miami Democrat who sponsored the bill.

The idea for the legislation came after elementary students in Cutler Bay, a small municipality in Miami-Dade County, found several plastic bags during an environmental cleanup, Bullard said. When they asked the town to draft an ordinance, officials found out Florida law pre-empts local regulations. Bullard's bill lifts that pre-emption to allow the pilot program from January 2017 through July 2019. The bill also requires municipalities to submit a report on the impacts of the program.

Americans use approximately 100 billion plastic bags every year, each typically discarded after a single use, according to a Senate staff report. Production of the bags requires both petroleum and natural gas use and each bag can last more than 1,000 years. Wind can carry them from garbage trucks, the tops of landfills and trash receptacles, resulting in the littering of streets and waterways, where animals mistake them for food.

The Florida Legislature in 2008 attempted to address the issue by requiring the Department of Environmental Protection to conduct a study while also prohibiting local governments from adopting any rules until lawmakers adopted the recommendations of the study. The DEP finished the study in 2010 and came up with several options, ranging from more education to a ban. The Legislature didn't revisit the issue again.

The city of Stuart, which sits on the St. Lucie River, hasn't thought about regulating plastic bags, but City Manager Paul Nicoletti said he's open to the idea.

"I'd like to think we are progressive enough that we would examine this," Nicoletti said.

Follow Isadora Rangel, Arek Sarkissian and Tampa news partner Jeff Schweers for updates on all the legislative action.

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