At the Commission meeting on July 25, 2018, the City Commission and Mayor adopted an ordinance extending the city’s previous single-use plastic straw/stirrers ban from beaches to all city properties, including marinas, parks, piers, docks, boat ramps and sidewalk cafes (as well as contractors and special events permitees).
The small size and disposable nature of single-use plastic beverage straws and single-use plastic stirrers cause them to become an environmental blight for coastal communities worldwide. The City of Miami Beach, similar to other cities, is a major and internationally recognized tourist destination that continues to encounter a proliferation of discarded plastic straws and plastic stirrers on the City’s beaches, waterways, and streets, as a result of businesses providing plastic straws and plastic stirrers with beverages, and improper disposal of those beverages and straws by consumers.
The average plastic straw is used only for a few minutes before being discarded. Plastic straws are one of the most commonly found littered items during beach cleanups and pose a challenge to daily cleaning efforts carried out by Miami-Dade County Parks and Recreation Beach Operations and Miami Beach Sanitation Department staff. It is estimated that 500 million single-use plastic beverage straws are used by Americans daily. Many of these end up in the ocean, where it takes approximately 200 years to begin degrading. According to a United Nations (UN) article, over eight million metric tons of plastic are found in our oceans every year, impacting our marine wildlife, fisheries, and tourism, and costing at least $8 billion in damage to marine ecosystems. Plastic straws are among the top ten marine debris items.
The remains and broken-down particles of these types of plastic are ingested by wildlife such as shore birds, sea turtles, and fish. The UN takes the position that it is critical to the public’s health, safety, and welfare to reduce litter and pollutants. Accordingly, the UN has launched a full campaign to encourage countries around the world to reduce their dependency on single-use plastics.
The City of Miami Beach is committed to reducing single-use plastics and the attached draft ordinance (Attachment A) is proposed the further extend the city’s existing single-use plastic straw/stirrers city-wide. The purpose of this ordinance is to further reduce the amount of plastic pollution outside of the waste stream and in Miami Beach’s storm drains and waterways through litter and the circulation of windblown debris, as well as to improve the City’s water quality. The proposed ordinance amends Chapter 46 of the City Code, to prohibit single-use plastic beverage straws and single-use plastic stirrers citywide.
Similar to the City’s polystyrene restriction, the ordinance proposes a phased implementation.
· During the first three months, a public education campaign will be conducted to inform businesses and residents of the provisions of the ordinance, and to provide assistance with identifying alternatives to single-use plastic beverage straws and single-use plastic stirrers (i.e. from August 1, 2019, through October 31, 2019).
· Following the City’s public education efforts, the City will provide for a six-month written warning period (i.e. from November 1, 2019, through April 30, 2019), during which time written warnings will be issued by the Code Compliance Department for violations of the ordinance.
· Beginning on May 2, 2020, the Code Compliance Department will enforce the full enforcement and penalty provisions in the ordinance.
The city’s #PlasticFreeMB program will assist with the public outreach implementation phase.