HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0064.007 2010-2012 Hawai'i County Council Committee on Environmental Management
11 AM Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Support for Comm. 64, Bill17 re. Plastic Bag Reduction
by Cory Harden,PO Box 10265, Hilo, Occupied Hawaii 96721 mhointerpac.net 808 968 - 8965
PLASTIC BAGS, 2007
Mahalo to Pete Hoffmann for introducing yet another plastic bag measure.
Plastiholic. That's what Sierra Club calls this addiction. "The world uses more than 500 billion bags
annually ". The United State uses 60 bags every five seconds— that's depicted in the image.
Each bag lasts 500 years —even if it's only used for five minutes. 97 percent of the bags are not
recycled. [quote and figures from Sierra Club website]
TAR SANDS MACHINES
It takes oil to make plastic. Obtaining oil is getting to be harder on the environment as we run out of
easy places to get it. So we're looking at pristine places like the Arctic. And difficult places like tar
sands, where water, pumped into the earth to force out oil, appears to be polluting wells and making
toilets explode.
MAN IN BOAT
But back to plastic, which, in bags and other forms, "accounts for 90 percent of floating marine
debris... [and] outweighs plankton by 46 times in the North Pacific Gyre ". [Sierra Club website]
There may also be three other plastic gyres -- -one in the Western Pacific, one off Japan, and one in
the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean.
SWIMMING TURTLE
Large pieces of plastic entrap, suffocate, and drown marine animals. Small pieces can choke
animals, cause starvation because the belly feels full, or cause intestinal blockage.
If fish eat plastic, then you eat the fish, you may be eating plastic toxins.
WOMAN
There are entire countries that have banned plastic bags. Maui and Kaua'i passed bag bills over a
year ago.
If tourists want bags, they can use paper, like they used to. if people want wastebasket liners or
swimming suit bags, they can buy them.
It is "socially unacceptable now to be seen with a plastic bag in public" in Ireland, where they charge
for bags, according to State Senator Gabbard.
(Plastic bag ban begins on Kauai and Maui, fee discussed for rest of state, KGMBIKHNL website,
http hawaiinewsnow .com/GlobaYstory.asp ?S= 13827367]
DEAD BIRD
Hawai'i County has been working on a bag bill for over a year. It's too late for this bird. But maybe
we can save the rest.
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