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Tag: plastic straws

Commissioners work to clean up beach litter

Written by SUN contributor on . Posted in Community News, Holmes Beach.

HOLMES BEACH – Commissioners are looking at two ordinances to help combat litter and the negative environmental impacts it brings.

The first ordinance would prohibit smoking on the beach and in city parks. The ban would not apply to city parking lots.

Beach and park visitors would not be allowed to smoke any filtered cigarettes while on those properties. City Attorney Erica Augello said that commissioners cannot regulate the smoking of unfiltered cigars.

Reasons for the proposed ordinance include an issue of public health from secondhand smoke and the butts of cigarettes left on the beach that pollute the environment and can endanger wildlife if they make it into the water or are ingested.

Commissioner Carol Soustek, a smoker, said she isn’t in favor of the ordinance because she feels like it’s taking choices away from the public and would be hard to enforce.

“I don’t want to become a police state,” she said. “I don’t want to regulate everything.”

As a 20-year volunteer with Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring, she said that most of what she saw on the beach was plastic, not cigarette butts.

Commissioner Pat Morton disagreed.

“I don’t want other people’s secondhand smoke,” he said, adding that it’s offensive when you’re not a smoker and that he doesn’t think it’s right for non-smokers to have to pick up and move on the beach when someone lights up around them.

Police Chief Bill Tokajer said that Holmes Beach police officers don’t see a lot of smokers on the beach, but they do get some complaints about smoking in public areas.

The ordinance is moving to a first reading at an unspecified future commission meeting.

Last straw?

The second ordinance being considered is one banning the sale and distribution of plastic straws.

Before that ordinance moves forward, commissioners instructed the city’s code compliance officers to get input from local businesses on how it would impact their business, what viable alternatives to plastic straws are available and how long it would take them to make the change.

Augello said that plastic straws are the only single-use plastic that commissioners are allowed to regulate.

Bill bans plastic straw bans

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in Environment, Featured, Outdoors.

TALLAHASSEE – The Florida Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee approved a bill today that would prevent local governments from banning plastic straws while the Florida Department of Environmental Protection studies the environmental impact of plastic.

Senate Bill 588 would prevent local governments from enforcing existing bans on plastic straws or passing new ordinances to ban them for five years while the study is conducted.

The bill would similarly prohibit local ordinances regulating sunscreens with ingredients believed to negatively impact coral reefs.

The original bill provided that a food service establishment could only distribute a single-use plastic straw to a customer on request, but bill sponsor Sen. Travis Hutson (R- Palm Coast) amended the bill today to preempt local bans instead.

“I just stop at government telling businesses what they can and cannot do,” he said during today’s committee meeting.

Hutson said that children and disabled people need plastic straws at public eateries to avoid choking hazards.

“We need to allow municipalities to lead the way locally to do what they need to do locally to protect themselves,” Laura Reynolds, of the Miami-based Plastics Free Coalition, told the committee. “We have plenty of studies out there to tell us single-use plastics are an environmental problem.”

Holly Parker Curry with Surfrider Foundation agreed, saying that plastic straws are a large portion of the trash in Surfrider beach cleanups statewide.

“At this point we don’t need a study, we need action,” she said.

Deborah Foote, of the Sierra Club of Florida, called the bill “unwise” and “disrespectful to local officials.”

Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring has long opposed plastic straws because of their impact on sea turtles.

The Sea Turtle Conservancy predicts that without bans on single-use plastics, like straws and cutlery, there could be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050.

If passed by the Legislature, the bill would become law on July 1.