The Falmouth Town Council is inviting the public to comment on whether the town should phase in a fee for one-time-use plastic shopping bags and then ban them completely a year later.

Although an ordinance has not yet been drafted, the council is contemplating a proposal from the Falmouth recycling committee that, if implemented as written, would make the Portland suburb the first in the state to implement an outright ban on one-time-use shopping bags.

“Eliminating the bags or putting a ban on them really gets us closer to solving the pollution problem,” said Barbara DiBiase, chairwoman of the town’s Recycling and Energy Advisory Committee.

The public can comment on the proposal at a hearing scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday at Falmouth Town Hall.

Falmouth’s proposal goes a step further than the ordinance implemented last spring in Portland. The city imposed a 5-cent fee per bag on customers of stores where food items make up more than 2 percent of sales, and banned the use of polystyrene foam.

No other town in Maine currently has a ban on plastic bags, although there are more than 90 cities and municipalities in the U.S., including in New England, that have bans. In Massachusetts, for example, plastic bags have been banned on the island of Nantucket since 1990. More recent bans have been enacted in Marblehead, Great Barrington and Manchester-by-the-Sea.

Last week, the South Portland City Council took the first in a series of votes affirming a bag ordinance identical to Portland’s. A second vote is required later this month, and the ordinance is expected to pass.

In Falmouth, if the ordinance is enacted as currently conceived, a fee of 5 cents per bag would be levied in the first year on customers at stores larger than 10,000 square feet, of which there are six in town: Hannaford supermarket, Wal-Mart, Rite Aid, Shaw’s supermarket, Staples and Goodwill.

“Based on our research, the most effective way of getting to that paradigm shift is through an outright ban,” said Kimberly Darling, sustainability coordinator for the town. “The reason we want to do the first-year phase-in approach is really preparation for the ban.”

In the second year, one-time-use plastic bags would be banned altogether, regardless of store size. Paper bags could be offered for an optional fee.

The current proposal has limited exceptions, such as for the sale of meats, produce, deli items, “leaky foods,” and if a bag is necessary to prevent product damage or contamination, such as for dry cleaners.

The one-year phased approach was designed to give retailers lead time to update their procedures and let customers acclimate to the coming change.

Businesses have given the idea some pushback, DiBiase said, but they are more concerned with sudden, unexpected changes than they are with the concept of the fee and ban.

“I got the impression from businesses that they wanted to know what the future would bring,” DiBiase said. “Either ban it or don’t. And tell me.”