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PI 1OLtAJm . I t M. t U7 Murashige, Laura From: sara phelan <seagroveyoga@gmail.com> Sent: Monday, March 06, 2017 4:21 PM COUNTY CLERK To: Council Testimony COUNTY OF HAWAI'I RECEI`lED Subject: FOAM Time '21 'f By Date (3R//7 • Aloha, My name is Sara Phelan, and I am a resident of O'ahu. I am writing in full support of Bill #13. m dee I concerned about the im acts that st rofoam is having on our environment, ;and particularly our la pY p y: beautiful Hawaiian islands I am asking:that you please take serious consideration y in removing styrofoam,from the islands,'`as well as educati g our local community so•n th•e• impact that these materials have on our precious ecosystems With education,,and personal;;responsibility, or KULEANA, our communities can learn to reuse their own reusable containers, or choose to support businesses who only use bio-degradable, earth friendly to go containers. Attached are more topics to consider... Cleanup Costs & Economic Benefits •Plastic is costing cities, counties, states, & countries millions of dollars and our global economy billions. Costs are passed to the taxpayers by burdening our storm water management systems with the need for expensive best management practices and the costs of cleanups. •Hawaii State Department of Transportation has produced a trash plan that shows styrofoam and plastic bags as the top two contributors to the waste stream. •The Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) created a plastic cleanup valuation study for 90+ counties in California: oCA taxpayers are paying $428 million per year to clean up plastic through storm drain management, street sweeping, and cleanups. oSan Diego County (with population of 1.3 equivalent to Hawaii) spends $14 million alone on plastic cleanup •United Nations Environmental Program Global Estimates are in the billions for the global cost to cleanup plastics, $14 billion for marine plastic alone. oThis cost is closer to $78 billion annually if all costs are considered, including the cost lost in fossil fuel production and loss of resources. •Burden on the public oAccording to cleanup hours recorded across Hawaii's beach cleaning organizations and volunteer hour base rates\we spent $750,000 - $1 million on beach cleanups in 2016 alone Environmental Impact •Further, for each ton of polystyrene not produced, 2.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions are avoided. This directly supports Hawaii's greenhouse gas reduction goals as stated in the Aloha + Challenge and as mandated by the US EPA. \td144/5 1Ref. To: RPf. Date iv9AR 0 lair