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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0064.189 2010-2012Murashige, Laura From: Elsie Kakuno [ek @kyd- inc.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2011 6:00 AM To: counciltestimony @co.hawaii.hi.us Subject: FW: Testimony for the Kona Public Hearing (Nov. 15th) on Bill 17 Attachments: HFIA TESTIMONY BILL 17 BI -Kona 11.07.doc From: Carmelita Phillips [mailto:csdp @kyd- inc.com] Sent: Monday, November 07, 2011 4:46 PM To: dy @kyd - inc.com; ghoriuchi @kyd - inc.com; gregm @kyd - inc.com; cl @kyd - inc.com; dm @kyd - inc.com; mtakiguchi @kyd - inc.com; mikey @kyd - inc.com; Mel Ancheta; Alan Kobayashi; ac @kyd - inc.com; rk @kyd - inc.com; Elsie Kakuno; gs @kyd- inc.com; my @kyd- inc.com; sy @kyd - inc.com; rp @kyd - inc.com; RFunakoshi @kyd - inc.com; vh @kyd- inc.com; asoriano @kyd - inc.com; dhubbard @kyd - inc.com; swatanabe @kyd - inc.com Subject: FW: Testimony for the Kona Public Hearing (Nov. 15th) on Bill 17 Page 1 of 2 Pia filial* Pure. N fait u6 Hello Everyone, Dexter has asked if we can lend assistance to the HFIA effort to stop the ban on plastic bags. Please forward to counciltestimony @co.hawaii.hi.us after typing in your name and address and our company information as requested by Lauren of HFIA. Please see me if you have any questions or require assistance in forwarding the message. Thanks, From: Dexter Yamada [mailto:dy @kyd - inc.com] Sent: Monday, November 07, 2011 1:22 PM To: csdp @kyd - inc.com Subject: FW: Testimony for the Kona Public Hearing (Nov. 15th) on Bill 17 Carm... see if some of our people can send in testimony using this attached format. Dexter From: Lauren Suzanne Zirbel [mailto:laurenzirbel @gmail.comj Sent: Monday, November 07, 2011 11:29 AM To: undisclosed- recipients: Subject: Testimony for the Kona Public Hearing (Nov. 15th) on Bill 17 Aloha HFIA Team, Please send in testimony to counciltestimon co.hawaii.h.us by November 14th at noon. 1 have attached a draft template for you in a word document. Title your email: Testimony for the Kona Public Hearing (Nov. 15th) on Bill 17. Please enter your own name, address and company information in HFIA's testimony and email it in. cz. Comm. No. __ Ref. To:/.2. f Ref: Date, NOV 1 5 Zatl 11/9/2011 Page 2 of 2 Thanks so much for your support. Mahalo, Lauren Lauren Zirbel Interim Executive Director Hawaii Food Industry Association 1050 Bishop Street, Box 235 Honolulu, HI 96813 Direct Line: 808 -294 -9968 NOTICE: This message is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and /or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, any review, retransmission, dissemination, copying or other use of this message is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please contact the sender immediately by reply email, delete this message from all computers, and destroy any printed copies. ***************************************************************** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** WARNING: Computer viruses can be transmitted via email. The recipient should check this email and any attachments for the presence of viruses. The sender accepts no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this email. Email transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error -free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late, incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept Liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message, which arise as a result of email transmission. ***************************************************************** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** 11/9/2011 November 7, 2011 Mr. Dominic Yagong, Chairperson And Members of the Hawaii County Coucil Via email: counciltestimony @co.hawaii.hi.us Dear Dominic Yagong, Chairperson and Members of the Hawai'i County Council, The Hawaii Food Industry Association is a non - profit trade association, which represents retailers, wholesalers, manufacturers, and brokers, as well as other associate members that work in the food industry. This legislation harms consumers and increases their most basic cost of living, food. We urge you to not pass this bill. As an alternative, we suggest a bill that would actually decrease the amount of single use bags used, as opposed to this bill, which simply shifts consumers to paper and increases costs. We genuinely hope that you consider the following information before making a decision about this bill. Why we should NOT ban plastic bags: • Production of paper bags generates 70% more air pollutants and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags. • Paper bags are six to eight times more voluminous than plastic bags. Shipping costs are six times greater. This means that the carbon footprint to bring paper bags to the island is greater than that to import plastic bags. Moreover, plastic bags are manufactured on Oahu and paper bags are not. • Plastic bags consume less than 4% of the water needed to make paper bags. It takes 5,527 cubic meters of water to produce 100 million paper bags. • The cost of foodstuffs is rising rapidly. The World Bank states that expansion of food based alternative energy and products have played a part in the doubling of the price of corn. These products also release methane into the environment, a powerful greenhouse gas, when they compost. • Plastic bags are far less expensive than paper in both cost per case, and cost of shipping. A typical plastic bag costs about a penny to produce, a paper one about 6 -10 cents and a compostable bag about 8 -12 cents. • The ULS San Francisco survey found that all food chains affected by the ordinance had switched to paper bags only. There was NO increase in reusable bag use. • In order to avoid having consumers pay more for food as a result of forcing retailers to switch from plastic to paper bags, which is actually less environmentally friendly, we would suggest focusing of reduction of all single use bags by implementing a fee on all single use bags. This will bring revenue to the County. Why we should implement a fee on ALL single use bags: • A tax on shopping bags in the Republic of Ireland has cut their use by more than 90% and raised millions of euros in revenue, the government says. • The Republic of Ireland's tax of 15 cents per bag was introduced as an attempt to curb litter, and the improvement was immediate and "plain to see ", said Environment Minister Martin Cullen. • Washington D.C. imposed a 5 cent per bag tax on retailers and restaurants. Within the first month of the program, the average monthly number of bags used in D.C. decreased over 80% from 22.5 million bags to just 3 million. The tax has already generated substantial funds to clean up the Anacostia River. • Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty points out that the tax on plastic bags is not to charge consumers out of using bags — or to burden them financially anymore than they may be with grocery store prices — but to encourage shoppers to avoid a tax in the first place by using reusable shopping bags. Mahalo Nui Loa for your time and consideration. Sincerely, Elsie Kakuno 1854 Sereno Street Honolulu, HI 96817 KYD, Inc. 2949 Koapaka Street Honolulu, HI 96819