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And if you're still wary of the higher costs of biodegradable single-use products you may be interested to know that while plastic is cheap it has devastating hidden costs. Cherisse Halsall discussed it with CEO Percival Cho and other stakeholders:

Belize's phase-out plan to ban single-use plastics was officially signed into law on January 15th. It's a bold step we've taken as one of the region's leaders in ocean conservation management. And DOE C.E.O Percival Cho says that these new regulations seek a more accurate balance.

Percival Cho, C.E.O, Ministry of the Environment
"In the world of environmental economics, and we have to take this into account in all the discussions about protecting the environment and mitigating climate change are based on these principles and the main principle is simple. Anything that we produce has a cost in addition to what you pay for it a bottle of water that you buy it costs a dollar if it's the small one but that has a cost on the environment, it has a cost on the public because we have to dispose of that. It has a cost of the environment because it creates damage over time as it degrades. Those costs haven't been incorporated by companies in the price of the product so what you get is a surplus of these products that don't take into account the cost."

One organization that is excited about the new law is Oceana, a tireless advocate for the health of the seas. And the NGO's communication's officer told us that if Belizeans think traditionally about food storage options the transition away from single-use plastics shouldn't be too hard.

Alyssa Noble-Carnegie, Public Relations, OCEANA
"The plastic habit is, I would venture to say, a new addiction I think for many of us Belizeans we can recall in our own lifetime our grandparents using market bags, using reusable containers. We can all relate to going into the fridge and opening a butter container and not finding butter in there, you know you open it and you get beans or something like that. So it has been something fairly recent for us and I think that is an indication that it is still possible for us to transition away from single-use items to things that we have been as a people as a country, as a culture, have been doing for many generations before plastic happened on us so. We think it's possible."

And while there is a general consensus that plastic pollution is a hazard to our environment, marine life, and even ourselves the public has voiced fears that this transition to biodegradable containers could have an immediate negative impact on the cost of living. The DOE disagrees:

Percival Cho, C.E.O, Ministry of the Environment
"But certainly I don't think there will be a situation where it becomes prohibitively costly to purchase food from a vendor just because they're using a different product than styrofoam and plastic that is not the expectation and we've studied the costing of the market and we don't expect that to be a real situation."

"The general view and the general advice, and the feedback from people as well so the industry folks know their options."

"Biodegradables they're a little expensive because of the manufacturing process and the sourcing of the raw bio-based materials and because it was considered a novel product, at the time. So the novelty I think has faded this is now a utilitarian type product this is what we need to use now. It's not novel anymore."

That's a sentiment that Ben Lo, the only large-scale manufacturer of partially biodegradable products in Belize, can get behind. And when we visited Lo's factory in November he shared his vision of how the plastic ban could definitely drive down the costs of his product.

Voice of: Benjamin Lo, Director of Nature Plus
"It's definitely feasible because it's such an early stage with regard to the introduction of this product it hasn't really taken hold, so the cost for the production of such a product is relatively prohibited but I think as we go along and the market becomes a little more accepting to it then I think that the costs will eventually drop like everything in life, like plastic which has always been because it's so pervasive that's why its so cheap and accessible right."

But Lo says kinks are still being ironed in determining the criteria by which to qualify Belize's own standard of what is biodegradable.

Benjamin Lo, Director of Nature Plus
"The criteria is manyfold because you have to consider the economic effects of a full 100% biodegradability or bio-based content as opposed to partial and because as you run the spectrum the more biodegradable it is it's more costly to manufacture and the less it is the less it cost."

"There is no doubt that some of my product still uses plastic but we don't use all of it. So 30% of my product is made of polymer which is a type of plastic and from that we fuse it with a bio-based content whether its cornstarch whether it's potato starch whatever starch it is we fuse it together and from that, we convert it into a finished product and what gives it the biodegradability part is when the starch gets fused with the polymer then that product goes out into the open environment, the microbes start eating away at the starch and the polymer so really it starts breaking down as opposed to plastic."

But those microbes are unfortunately no match for two seemingly small plastic offenders that at this time aren't being phased out.

Percival Cho, C.E.O, Ministry of the Environment
"In terms of those plastics, those shilling bags as we call them. We did a study recently on marine plastic pollution with the help of the British government, DOE, and several other partners and what that study showed is that on the coastlines of Belize where we did the survey one of the most abundant sources of plastic was from those shilling bags and then the chips bags the Doritos, and the other chips bags and all those chips that we eat. That type of material is the most abundant so, using that information to inform policy we set some policy regulations to cabinet in an implementation plan that was approved and we socialized this to the public. We have set some milestones to address those plastic pollutions in the future one of the principal things we would have to do is work with the industry to find other alternatives or look at perhaps a recovery mechanism to ensure that these containers can be recovered rather than being thrown in the environment."

As we've told you, GOB still has to determine specific criteria for Belize's definition of Biodegradable. That will mean questions about degradation time, organic content, and international testing standards surrounding the replacements of single-use plastics.