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doorae@kokuahawaiifoundation.org www.kokuahawaiifoundation.org Are you a member?www.kokuahawaiifoundation.org/membership Become a volunteer: volunteer@kokuahawaiifoundation.org "The secret to change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new."- Socrates On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 9:27 AM, Doorae Shin<doorae@kokuahawaiifoundation.org>wrote: Aloha, My name is Doorae Shin, and I am testifying in full support of Bill #13 on behalf of the Kokua.Hawaii Foundation. At our most recent beach cleanup on MLK Day, we picked up 7,000 lbs. of marine debris off of Kahuku beach. This is just from an hour and a half of cleaning. A large portion of what we find at beach cleanups is EPS Foam (aka styrofoam). UH Manoa Foam Free Since 2013 I first became aware of plastic pollution when I was a student at UH Manoa. I moved here 7 years ago to go to UH, and I fell in love with nature. I was truly in awe at the beauty of this place, and I was humbled by my newfound connection to the mountains, the ocean, and all the life that makes Hawaii the paradise that it is. But in my first years on the island, I noticed so much trash and plastic flying around and littered in the places I love, and Styrofoam was a big offender. I organized a campaign at UH Manoa to ban EPS foam, and in April of 2013, the administration passed an official policy banning food vendors from using EPS foam. In the transition period where restaurants switched to alternatives, there was never a single complaint of economic hardship or dissatisfaction about the policy. All of UH's food establishments, ranging from small food trucks to larger businesses, made a smooth transition, and UH has been a foam-free campus ever since. There have been zero complaints from businesses and customers about the foam ban at UH } Manoa.A copy of the policy can be found here: http://manoa.hawaii.edu/policies/pdfs/SustainableFoodServiceProducts.pdf Marine Debris 80% of all marine debris is land-based, meaning it comes from consumers like ourselves that use plastic in our day-to-day lives. Global data from the Ocean Conservancy reveals that 9 out of the 10 top items found on our beaches are food and beverage related plastics (the only one that is not is cigarette butts), so reducing single-use plastics from foodservice is the lowest hanging fruit to mitigate the plastic pollution crisis facing our oceans. Impact on Wildlife &the Food Chain = Most of the plastic we pick up has fish bites all over it. We know from the research of scientists around the world that millions of sea and land animals suffer injuries or death from the ingestion of or entanglement in plastic. Our overconsumption of plastic is causing unnecessary harm to nature and wildlife, and this bill is an important step in reducing that suffering. Not to mention that the harmful chemicals in plastics accumulate up the food chain, meaning that people eating fish & seafood receive concentrated doses of these chemicals in their bodies. It's Unnecessary &There Are Alternatives The key point here is that our use of styrofoam in foodservice is unnecessary. Single-use plastics, like the foam containers, cups, & plates used at local restaurants, are made from petroleum and are designed for one use. To design a product to be used for less than 30 minutes that we know will last hundreds of years in the environment is irresponsible and irrational. 2