Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0064.016 2010-2012 Page 1 of 1 Murashige, Laura CC VOA. C 1_' F. Mci From: collin maynard [col.may08O9 @gmail.com] Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 7:49 AM To: counciltestimony @co.hawaii.hi.us Cc: dgoodale @hualalai.org -t Subject: Bill 17 Attachments: Bill17.docx Comm. NO. T 40 Ref. To 1/31/2011 Bill 17, Plastic Bag Reduction Co- written By: Cody Lambrecht, age: 13. 74 -4923 Kiwi street, Kailua -kona, HI Cod.lam0809 a,gmail.com Collin Maynard, age: 14. 74 -4366 Hulihau street, Kailua -Kona, HI Col.may0809kgmail.com Plastic bags are used for every day things like trash can liners, lunch bags, to hold wet cloths, grocery bags, etc. Now for some of these things, plastic bags may be necessary, but certainly not all of them. In this presentation, I hope to show you how a plastic bag tax, and the use of cloth bags, will greatly decrease the harmful effects of plastic bags around the world. Plastic bags are made from a type of plastic called polyethylene, which is made from oil. In the U.S. alone, 12 millions barrels of oil are used to make plastic bags each year. It takes up to 10,000 years for each plastic bag to decompose. And even when it does break down, the toxins leach into the soil and enter the food chain. Approximately 100 billion of the 380 billion plastic bags are shopping bags. The average family accumulates 60 plastic bags in only four trips to the grocery store. Plastic bags are carried by wind into forests, ponds, rivers, and lakes. Many terrestrial and marine animals mistake plastic bags for food, or nest building material, and either ingest it, or get tangled in it. Plastic bags cause over 100,000 marine animal's deaths every year. But paper bags are not the solution. In 1999 the U.S. alone used 10 billion paper grocery bags, which adds up to a lot of trees. 1 gallon of water is needed to produce 1 paper bag. Machinery is still needed to log the trees, for transportation, and at the paper plants. Thus, still using fossil fuels. What we need is a plastic bag tax, and switching from plastic to cloth bags. Many countries have created laws aimed to decrease the use of plastic bags. In 2001, for example, Ireland was using 1.2 billion plastic bags annually. In 2002, the Irish government created a plastic bag tax, which has reduced consumption by 90 percent. This is what we should do. Cloth bags can be made from recycled material, or from abundant natural materials, such as cotton. They are durable, and reusable. People throw away hundreds and hundreds of bags a year, when really, all you need.... Is one. If they get dirty, they can be machine washed! They will pay themselves back in about a year and a half. Then you make money to use them! As I said earlier, banning plastic bags is not the answer. We just need to implement a higher tax on plastic bags so that less people will use them. By making plastic and paper bags we are wasting tons of oil, thousands of gallons of water, lots of trees, and polluting the air by using fossil fuels. Is this the kind of world you want to live in? Or do you want to have a world where stop wasting oil, stop cutting down trees, and start to do the smart thing. Because personally, I would like a world that is not littered with hazardous plastic bags, that kill hundreds of thousands of animals a year. I would like a world free of fossil fuel pollution. A world free of plastic bags, how about you?