PROVIDENCE — When state lawmakers attempt to ban single-use plastic products, the efforts don’t always go the way they thought.

The General Assembly over the past five years has passed statewide bans on single-use plastic bags and plastic straws, in an attempt to curb litter and waste from heading to the landfill and to spur local businesses to adopt readily available alternatives.

The straw ban was particularly ineffective, with many businesses still handing out the plastic tubes in drinks more than a year after the ban became effective, and the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH), the enforcing state agency, rarely forcing compliance.

The state seems to have turned a corner with this year’s new bans, however. Thanks to legislation passed in 2023, Styrofoam takeout containers and plastic drink stirrers were banned from Rhode Island businesses as of Jan. 1.

“We are seeing high rates of compliance,” said Joseph Wendelken, RIDOH’s public information officer, told ecoRI News.

According to Wendelken, between January and the end of July, the department has found that only 5.6% of all businesses inspected still use containers made of polystyrene foam, commonly known as Styrofoam, and only 1.7% of all businesses inspected handed out plastic beverage stirrers.

Wendelken said RIDOH had yet to hand out any fines for non-compliance and was focusing instead on increasing awareness of the new bans. Checking for Styrofoam takeout containers and plastic stirrers has been integrated into the agency’s regular inspections, he said.

“We created a guidance document about the law and have sent it out through our quarterly newsletter and emailed this guidance document to all licensed facilities,” Wendelken said. “We will continue to work on increasing awareness.”

While some restaurants have chosen biodegradable, compostable containers, ecoRI News has also encountered plastic, clamshell-style takeout containers in local restaurants.

Madison Hindle, education and outreach manager for the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, the quasi-public state agency responsible for operating the Central Landfill in Johnston and the state’s recycling program, told ecoRI News that type of new takeout containers can be recycled.

“In Rhode Island’s mixed recycling program, the rule for plastic is simple: it must be a plastic container that is 5 gallons in size or less. That’s it — no other types of plastic are accepted,” Hindle said. “Containers must be empty at a minimum and rinsed whenever possible. Please also place plastic tops back onto containers before recycling.“

Litter is proving to be a stubborn problem Rhode Island just can’t seem to fix, and lawmakers in recent sessions have favored statewide bans on individual products such as takeout containers over more systemic solutions like a bottle redemption system, also known as a bottle bill.

Last year, as part of the International Coastal Cleanup event run by the nonprofit Save The Bay, some 2,000 volunteers picked up more than 21,000 pounds of trash along Rhode Island’s coastline.

While not a perfect measurement of the amount of litter in the Ocean State’s environment and habitats, Save The Bay’s final report offers a decent snapshot of how much trash escapes before it reaches the landfill. The most common pieces of trash collected during last year’s cleanup were beverage bottles, cans, bottle caps, lids, cups, straws, and stirrers, at 29% of all trash collected. Plastic stirrers and straws accounted for 2.75% of all trash collected.

Foam food containers and packing were only a tiny fraction of what was collected: 0.99% for food containers, and 0.94% for foam packaging. The most common form of litter was pieces of plastic and foam less than an inch in size. In total these small pieces of litter account for 11% of all trash collected, the second-largest amount in any one trash product, according to Save The Bay’s report.

Small plastic debris, commonly known as microplastics, is a growing environmental concern. A 2023 study by researchers at the University of Rhode Island found that the top 2 inches of the seafloor of Narragansett Bay contained more than 1,000 tons of microplastics.

Another URI study released last month showed that stormwater runoff was a key driver of microplastics into Narragansett Bay, with high concentrations after periods of heavy rain from the Blackstone, Pawtuxet, and Taunton rivers.