The opioid epidemic has left a trail of death and despair in its wake and scattered hypodermic needles across playgrounds, alleyways, and front stoops throughout some of Boston’s neighborhoods.

Last Wednesday, the Boston City Council’s Committee on Government Operations discussed one proposal for dealing with the dangerous litter, which is a symptom of the addiction problem that some advocates said is getting worse.

City Councillor At Large Annissa Essaibi George wants pharmacies in the city to play a bigger role in the proper disposal of needles and so she proposed an ordinance that would require all needle sellers to collect needle waste, which pharmacists believe could lead to hazards within their stores and disadvantage them against online competition.

Ryan Kearney, general counsel for the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, expressed concern about the health risks and the liability if people began dropping off used needles at drug stores. “Retail pharmacies are not waste disposal sites,” he told the committee.

The city collected 20,000 littered needles over the course of the year, Essaibi George said, and those who toss needles in trash bins create a hazard for workers who collect the garbage.

“Even those that are in active addiction are interested in properly disposing of those needles, and their family members are also interested” in doing that,” she said.

There are ongoing city-sponsored efforts to make sure needles, or sharps, are properly handled.

The city has nine sharps collection sites, according to the Massachusetts Independent Pharmacists Association. With new funding, the city’s Mobile Sharps Team, which responds to calls for needle disposal and interacts with drug users, is going to double in size from two team members to four, according to Sarah Mackin, director of harm reduction services for the Boston Public Health Commission.

Last year, AHOPE Boston Needle Exchange distributed 250,000 syringes and safely disposed of 310,000 used syringes that were given to the exchange, according to Mackin, who said access to clean syringes has reduced the spread of HIV in Massachusetts.

Patrick Huntington, representing the Massachusetts Chain Pharmacy Council, said drug stores would need to train cashiers and shelf-stockers in the safe-handling of syringes even if they have nothing to do with the pharmacy, which is often located at the rear of the store.

“You should be training them anyway if they work in a pharmacy setting,” Essaibi George suggested to Huntington.

Her ordinance would require pharmacies to provide sharps disposal “within” the establishment, although Essaibi George told the News Service she could see benefits to placing a kiosk on the outside of the store, providing convenience for people getting rid of needles.

Stores would need to report the number of sharps collected to the Inspectional Services Department (ISD), under the ordinance. Right now, ISD visits drug stores mainly to calibrate their scales, according to ISD Commissioner William Christopher, who said the proposal would create additional workload for his department.

“It would quadruple the number of inspections that would be required to visit the pharmacies unless there was some other method that was put into place to deal with this on an electronic platform,” Christopher told the News Service.

Discarded sharps are particularly prevalent in the South End and Newmarket neighborhoods, according to Stephen Fox, a South End advocate, and Sue Sullivan, executive director of the Newmarket Business Association.

“I see thousands of needles in Newmarket every week,” said Sullivan, who said that in the past month four member businesses told her that employees had been stuck by needles. She said, “It’s inevitable that more and more people are getting stuck.”

“It seems like we’re always falling a little further behind as this crisis continues to escalate,” Fox said about the “influx” of needles in his neighborhood.

A 2006 law that passed over a Gov. Mitt Romney veto legalized over-the-counter sales of hypodermic needles in an effort to reduce the spread of disease caused by needle sharing. The Legislature that year “seriously considered and rejected” language that would have required pharmacies to accept used syringes, according to the Chain Pharmacy Council.

The Massachusetts Independent Pharmacists Association (M.I.P.A.) told councilors that some drug stores don’t have space to comply with Essaibi George’s proposal, and the ordinance would create an “unfair” advantage for businesses that sell syringes via mail while also creating public safety risks.

“It is unfair to expect a pharmacy to bear the cost of disposing of sharps that were purchased somewhere else,” M.I.P.A. Executive Director Todd Brown wrote to Essaibi George. He added, “Imagine the scenario where a heroin abuser injects and then while high on heroin goes into a busy retail establishment to dispose of a used needle and syringe. This is a prescription for disaster!”

There will likely be several additional sessions for people to air their thoughts on the proposal, according to Essaibi George, who said she is open to changes and hopes to find “more common ground” with pharmacists.

“We need pharmacies to participate in being part of the solution and pharmacies want to be,” Essaibi George said. She said, “They’re a point of contact for consumers, for those that require the use of hypodermic needles - whether they’re unfortunately in active addiction and using it for illicit drug use, or they’re diabetics or have another chronic illness or have another condition that requires them to use a needle for injectible medication.”