Anyone who needs a syringe or needle can get one at a CVS, a Walgreens, or other pharmacies in Boston. And under a City Council proposal, they would be able to get rid of them there, too.

It’s a strategy that aims to curb sharps disposal onto city streets and playgrounds, but the proposal is already meeting opposition from retail associations that represent pharmacies.

“Retail pharmacies are not waste disposal sites; they are not in the business of waste disposal,’’ Ryan C. Kearney, general counsel for the Retailers Association of Massachusetts,said during a City Council hearing on the proposal Wednesday.

“There is going to be a point where those sharps, even if they are properly put into a container, they’re going to have the potential to expose customers and retailers to additional health risk that our [businesses] are not currently prepared to deal with,’’ he said. “The average retail employee is not trained for this . . . the 18- or 19-year-old cashier does not know how to deal with this.’’

Councilor Annissa Essaibi-George, the lead sponsor of the proposed city ordinance, said during the hearing that any pharmacy that hires workers to be near medications should also train them on how to take back syringes.

“Regardless of if you’re in the front selling candy bars or in the back preparing prescriptions,’’ she said.

The back-and-forth was central to a problem that has accompanied the city and state’s opioid epidemic: The syringes that drug addicts use are being disposed of in city streets, on playgrounds and in parks, alleyways, and gardens.

Essaibi-George said that, as the council’s chairwoman for the committee on homelessness, mental health, and recovery, she began to explore the city’s efforts to recover sharps from city streets, specifically through a Mobile Sharps team that responds to reports of discarded needles. Essaibi-George said that the two-person team recovered more than 20,000 sharps last year, and the city has now doubled the number of employees to four people.

But, Essaibi-George said Wednesday, “The fact is, we need help. We have needles across our city.’’

Even people who use them for ailments such as diabetes have disposed of them in coffee cans, or detergent bottles, and leave them in trash because they have no other way to get rid of them, she said.

“The pharmacies really do provide an opportunity to help us in this work,’’ she said.

Essaibi-George’s proposal would require that anyone, including retail sites, that dispenses sharps provide for the free and safe removal of them. Those who violate the ordinance could be fined $300, which would be directed to city recovery services.

Essaibi-George said later that Wednesday’s hearing was only a first step in what could be a monthslong process to craft a policy that will include input from pharmacies and residents who see their streets littered with needles.

Stephen S. Fox, chairman of the South End Forum, an umbrella organization that oversees 17 neighborhood associations, told councilors that his group would be willing to serve as a pilot neighborhood for a program to coordinate better ways to dispose of needles.

“We have recognized for a long time there is a crying need in our neighborhood for additional disposal sites,’’ he said.

Susan Sullivan, executive director of the Newmarket Business Association, said she has heard from four members of her organization who said that a worker had been pricked by a needle in the past month.

“More and more people are getting stuck every day because of the sheer numbers,’’ she said, adding that the organizations that provide needles “have to be the ones that take them back.’’

Patrick J. Huntington, president of Massachusetts Bay Associates, a government relations group that represents pharmacies, said that many would be willing to partner with the city, but that they oppose a “one-size-fits-all’’ resolution.

He said pharmacies should not be scapegoated for needles that end up on streets, saying that many people get needles from online pharmacies. And pharmacies should not be put in a position where they are required to let people return needles at their locations, saying that it puts cashiers and the general public at risk.

Several communities in California, including San Francisco, have set up mobile disposal sites at local pharmacies. But the local communities run those programs, even if they charge a fee to organizations that sell needles.

Still, Huntington told councilors, officials at one company in San Francisco report an employee getting stuck by a needle at least once a month.

Milton J. Valencia can be reached at milton.valencia@ globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @miltonvalencia.