COM 0972.001 2004-2006 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Amber W. Datta P.O. Box 1070 Captain Cook, HI 96704 Age: 14 years old Entering 9th grade @ Hualalai Academy 328- 9044 ambie@earthlink.net Addressed to: Hawai'i County Council I would like to see the ban on smoking at Kahalu'u Beach Park approved. Aloha, My name is Amber Datta, and I am a member of the West Hawaii Youth Fisheries Council. I have lived on the Big Island my entire life, and have gone to Kahalu'u Beach Park numerous times. I've gone to snorkel, play in the sand, or to pick up trash. The last time I visited with my school, Hualalai Academy, a group of 10 students, including myself, collected two large jars, packed full of cigarettes in 30 minutes, disgusting! Annually, 4.5 trillion cigarettes are littered worldwide. Of the trash found on beaches, 20% to 60% of it is cigarettes! These cigarettes have been found to negatively affect the population of ghost crabs on beaches, and are also known to kill birds and other animals. Cigarette butts are made of cellulose. These creatures mistake the butts for food, fill their stomachs with them and that alone can cause malnutrition as well as starvation. The cigarette butts also contain over 165 toxic chemicals. Beside cigarettes' effects on the fauna, a discarded still-burning cigarette can cause terrible fires, wiping out flora, buildings, cars, etc. Thousands of acres are burned each year because of cigarettes, some causing millions of dollars in damage. Communities such as ours are affected by cigarettes everyday, not only by the fires, but by things such as secondhand smoke and the unsightly littered butts. Neither we nor our visitors like to walk down the street or on a beach, and see hundreds of butts at their feet. Nobody wants to see a child build a sand castle and decorate it with the butts they've found in the process. At Kahalu'u, I have seen the butts being thrown on the ground, often still burning, played with by the children who find them, and I have picked them up myself. After helping to pick up over 1200 butts last spring in half an hour, I have seen just how many there are, and I know that if this ban isn't passed, there will be just as many there next year. Solana Beach, California, started it the ban of smoking on the beach and it is now spreading across the state into 35 other near-beach cities. Smoking is banned at Hanama Bay. Others have banned smoking on beaches and so can we. Thank you for your time in reading this paper. Aloha, Amber Datta