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Home My WebLink AboutCOM 0663.007 2008-2010 OFFICERS �"• Chairman Michael W Walters ' 11 HAWAII FOOD INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION (HFIA) (Love's Bakery) Vice Chair FOOD 1188 Bishop St., Suite 608, Honolulu, Hawaii 96813 Randy Slentz INDUSTRY Phone (808)533 -1292 - Fax (808)599 -2606 - Email: hawaiifoodind @aol.com (Times Supermarkets) • SecretaryITreasurer • Bonny Amemiya (Anheuser -Busch Sales Hawaii) January 5, 2010 Immediate Past Chair Paul Kosasa To: Hawai'i County Council Committee on Environmental Management (ABC Stores) ident Council Member Kell Greenwell Chair P C. Kelly Richard C. Botti (HFIA) Council Member Brenda Ford Vice Chair Executive Director Paula S. Aono (HFIA) Re: Ordinance No. 193 relating to plastic bags DIRECTORS ABC Stores —Paul Kosasa From: Hawaii Food Industry Association AhFooks— Raymond hew Richard C. Botti, President Advantage Webco - Tim Doyle American Savings - Larry Ishii We oppose Bill 193. AnheuserBuschSales - BonnyAmemiya Armstrong Produce - Kelvin Shigemura This measure addresses the symptom of the problem we face with mil- Avis/Budget - Gordon Kai Better Brands - George Szigeti lions of single use bags of all types being used annually. Big Save - Charles Kawakami C&S Wholesale Grocery—Beau Oshiro This measure does not recognize what the private sector is doing, but Coca Cola—Marshalle Pagan ConAgra Grocery - Stan Brown merely bans the best product being used for the intended purpose. Down to Earth—Mark Fergusson Foodland —Joe Detro Frito-Lay of Hawaii - John Erickson Section 1 item number 1 is not accurate; Horizon Lines - Mike Ohashi Section 1 item number 2 is incomplete; HPCFoods - EmieToltori Section 1 item number 3 does not take into consideration that biodegrad- KTASuperstores - Barry Taniguchi KYD, Inc. - Dexter Yamada able plastic bags exist and are being used more widely; L.H. Gamble Co. - HoagyGamble Section 1 item number 4 is not accurate, as most plastic bags are not Love's Bakery - Mike Walters Marukai —Roy Ishihara made from crude oil; Matson Navigation - Cliff Mattos Meadow Gold Dairies —Glenn Muranaka Section 2 Section 14 -_. Purpose states that the purpose is to reduce the Midweek/Star Bulletin - JayHiga Nestle - Leighton Kido use of plastic bags to encourage the use of environmentally preferable alter- Oahu Sales- PaulNakata natives such as reusable. It doesn't say anything about reducing paper bags, RSMHawaii - Gary Hanagami Seven - Eleven - Glenn Nagatori bag recycling, compostable opportunities, or utilizing plastic to generate elec- Tamura Superette- Cliff Tamura tricity. Tamura's Wahiawa - Glenn Tamura Tesoro - Alan Nakamura The Honolulu Advertiser - Mike Wiley While plastic has its downsides, plastic bags, biodegradable plastic bags, The Pepsi Bottling Co. - Gary Yoshioka and oxo- biodegradable bags (which are plastic bags with oxo - biodegradable The Pint Size Corp. - Brian Christensen Times Supermarket - Randy Slenlz additives) are the most favorable in terms of the amount of resources and en- Trade Publishing - FaithFreilas ergy it takes to actually produce the product. Paper and compostable options WaianaeStore - KyleOkimoto Whole Foods -- Claire Sullivan don't fair nearly as well. WhaesaleUnlimited - WayneYamada C omm. : 3 . Big Island Bill 193 Ref. To; Ref. [ate 7 A Hawaii Food Industry Association testimony on Bill 193 A paper bag is 6.5 times more volumous than a plastic bag so it will take 6.5 times as many shipments to Hawaii to allow for the same amount of product, this fact doesn't even take into consideration that there are plastic bag manufactures in Hawaii employing hundreds of people while simultaneously reducing our carbon footprint by reducing our shipment of paper bag product. Paper bags take 91% more en- ergy to produce than plastic bags. The production of paper bags generates 70% more air pollution than plastic bags. This bill will negate any recycling efforts for plastic film and packaging products which are now recycled alongside plastic bags and taken in large ships back to the mainland to be turned into eco- friendly building materials. Compostable bags can not be recycled and they destroy recycling batches if they are added to them. Similar to San Francisco, after a ban was put in place, consumers will simply started utilizing the same number of paper bags as they had utilized of plastic bags prior to the ban. Nothing biodegrades in a landfill. According to the EPA, "Current research demonstrates that paper in today's landfills does not degrade or break down at a substantially faster rate than plastic does. In fact, nothing completely degrades in modern landfills due to the lack of water, light, oxygen, and other im- portant elements that are necessary for the degradation process to be completed." Right now we have a flourishing recycling program in place. Recycling of plastic bags has increased 900 %, according to Foodland. This is due in part to money back programs that stores are offering. I leave you with two quotes: • Our landfills are becoming landfulls. • The plastic bag issue is a litter issue, with energy as the solution. We believe the best solution is: • Mandatory reduction of all single use bags by retail establishments. This is the only approach that will truly reduce the environmental impact of all bags, regardless of what material they are made from. • Plastic has about the same Btu value as does crude oil. We need to utilize this for sus - tainability rather than landfilling or exporting plastic for recycling. We would have fuel coming into the State free as packaging, reducing the need for oil.