HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0107.128 2016-2018 COUNTY CLERK
COUNTY OF HAWAII
RECEIVED
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Date. ® C 17
Murashige, Laura
From: Binder Matt <mattbinder@earthlink.net>
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2017 7:53 PM
To: Council Testimony; Chung,Aaron; Kanuha, Dru; Ohara, Eileen; Ruggles,Jennifer; Eoff,
Karen; David, Maile; Lee Loy, Sue; Poindexter,Valerie; Richards, Tim
Subject: Support Bill 13 - Ban Polystyrene
Aloha Councilmembers,
I testify in support of Bill 13, limiting polystyrene use on our island.
Polystyrene is the worst plastic pollutant in everyday use today. It is the most damaging to the
environment in its manufacture and disposal. There are affordable, safe, attractive alternatives to
every polystyrene product.
Some say it will drive up the price of food. This is just as false as the statements in years passed
about plastic bags. While the cost of some safer alternative products is higher, that is not true for
all the options. Even for the most elegant and costly alternatives, this is a negligible increase.
I compare this discussion to the plastic bag reduction bill several years ago. At that time all the
same arguments were made as to why we could not do this here. "It's too expensive, it will harm
business, local folks will never learn new habits, and it will harm sellers of the banned products."
In reality, none of these were true. We learned to do without single use plastic bags, no
businesses failed, either in retail or distributors, local folks did indeed learn new habits, we saved
precious landfill space, we protected our environment, and the sky did not fall.
Mahalo,
Matt Binder
Waimea
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