 Welcome to Hawaii is my mainland on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Kaui Lucas. Today's show is Honolulu's bag ban bill, trick or truth. We're going to discuss whether the Honolulu City Council has a chance to redeem itself next Wednesday, June 7th, 2017 by passing Bill 59 CD2, FD2 from 2016 to really ban single use plastic bags. If you want to ask a question or participate in the discussion, tweet us at thinktechhi or call us at 415-871-2474. Our guests for the show are Suzanne Fraser and Dean Otsuki, co-founders of Beach Environmental Awareness Campaign Hawaii, or B-E-A-C-H. Welcome to Hawaii is my mainland, Dean and Suzanne. Well, thanks for having us on the show. Well, this has been a, for this particular bill, it's in its sixth form, its sixth iteration. Over two years, it's been through more machinations than is believable, actually. There have been so many listening to you give the history of this yesterday, Suzanne. It's stunning. It's really astonishing how underhanded politics can be in this town over something like plastic bags. Yes, a simple ban. So where are we right now in this moment? Right now in this moment. We're a few days away from the final, final hearing of Bill 59 at the city council. And there's now two versions on the bill. One is a floor draft one. And that version will actually put fees on all plastic and paper bags. It will ban compostable bags in 2018. But it won't go any further than just mostly a fee bill. The other one that's actually on the agenda for next Wednesday, a proposed floor draft two of the bill, that one's a much better version because it will actually do the fees on paper and plastic. It will ban the compostables in 2018. But it takes that extra step that's really needed, which is going to ban the thick plastic bags. So those are the bags like this one from Don Quixote that were made thicker. So about two years ago when there was supposed to be a plastic bag ban, what really happened was a plastic bag switch. So basically, this door switch from a thin yellow plastic bag to now a thick yellow plastic bag, meaning that's a great big loophole in the law. So that's why we're actually supporting the floor draft two proposed by Brandon Elefonte because it'll get the job done of clothes at least two of the loopholes in the current wall. OK, so let's talk about the actual legislators involved in this because that makes it clearer for everybody. And we want to know who wants what and what people can do about it ultimately before next Wednesday is to help this actually go through. Right. We really need it to pass. It's appalling. I think that Honolulu is the only county in Hawaii that doesn't have this. That's right. I mean, we have the most loopholes in our law, which has caused a failure of any sort of a ban to take place on this island. As I said, it's a switch, not a ban at the moment. OK, so the committee that this is in is in what, who's hearing this and when? Do we know any of the specifics? Well, it's the committee is this. I don't know exactly the name of the committee, but it's the public works and sustainability committee. And the chair of that committee is Carol Fukunaga. And she's the one that is pushing for the FD-1. FD-1, and that's the one that does not include these thick plastic bags or the. This is the one that is the fee bill where it's they're going to mandate business charge 10 cents or more for a plastic or a paper bag. Instead of doing a ban, right? Instead of doing a ban, right? But didn't you say that the the Elefante bill, the FD-2 bill also charges a fee? Yeah, so he's he's one also charges a fee, but he's going to sunset these thick plastic bags in 2020. So his bill takes an extra step to actually get rid of the bags. So just 20. Yeah, they wanted to give the stores plenty of time to get rid of their stock, although three years seems a bit excessive, but no one can complain. Like really, Brandon Elefante's version of the bill is a good win-win all around because it'll give the stores what they want. Apparently some stores want to charge for paper and plastic bags, so they will still have a charge on paper bags after 2020, but there'll be no more plastic bags. And is that charge set? Is the amount, or is it up to the stores? It's a minimum 10 cent charge, and many stores are already doing 10 cents on their bags. So it's really unnecessary in our view, and we did not support a fee bill. We were testifying against that all the way through the process because it goes to two committee hearings and three council hearings and excess other hearings if it gets held up, and all the way along until recently, there was nothing for us to cheer on because it was a fee bill instead of a ban. But luckily at the last council hearing, Brandon Elefante brought in another version of the bill, and that version does give us the ban that we've been seeking. However, there's still going to be more work to be done no matter which version passes because the additional loopholes allow these sorts of bags to be used for prepared food and drinks. So that is not going away, and neither are... So how is that regulated, prepared food and drinks? If I go to Safeway and I go to their deli counter and get something, are they going to give me a bag like that? They would probably be allowed to give you a bag like that, yes. And then if you go to a farmer's market, you're likely to get one of these as well if you don't bring your own bag. So that's another loophole. These are called t-shirt bags. I'm not quite sure why, but I suppose they look like a t-shirt. I don't know. But the trouble with these bags is that... I don't know if you've ever seen them when they're hanging up at the farmer's market, but they have a little piece at the top here. And when they rip it down, the little piece of plastic ends up on the ground. So there's a whole lot of pieces of plastic on the ground, littered all over the ground at the end of a farmer's market, which is the right size to get eaten. So this is why we actually really want to see a ban on all plastic checkup bags, no matter how thick or thin all of the plastic checkup bags are unnecessary, wasteful and harmful. So that's why we want to see a complete ban. Okay, and so the current... What's going to be heard on Wednesday, there's two versions of the bill, but are they going to hear both versions? We hope so. Yeah, they're both on the agenda, which is the good news. So we'll see what happens, I guess, on Wednesday. It's actually the day before World Ocean Day, so we're really hoping that... Wouldn't that be fantastic? Wouldn't it? Yeah, I really would. And I was doing a little research for this show and googling around. I came across all of these articles saying, oh, why you passed the bag ban back in 2012? Actually, a lot of nonsense. Yeah, that's not even true. It's like me saying I'm going to go gluten-free and I'm going to switch from thin wheat noodles to thick wheat noodles. Have I gone gluten-free? I mean, it's just as silly as that. Like, we switch from thin plastic bags to thick plastic bags. How is that a plastic bag ban? Like, I just... I don't know. It's appalling. I can't believe that we've allowed this to persist. Now, speaking of bags and so forth, wait, we have a few other things on the table here that maybe need some explanation. So, Dean, would you like your... These are actually plastic bag knots. Okay, we find these at cleanups along all the beaches here in Hawaii. This is what's left after marine life, they'll eat in the rest of the plastic bag. They can't eat the knot, so that's what these are left over. You want to hold the black one and you can see that better. So, what ends up happening is that someone has tried the bag in a knot and the marine life had eaten off all the ends and sides of it and every piece of it and left just the knot remaining. So, this is what washes up on our shorelines out of the Great Pacific garbage patch. So, we hardly ever see the whole bag. This is all that remains of the bag. Wow, that's really bizarre. And why are you wearing a glove, Dean? Well, what happens with plastic in the ocean is that it attracts these chemicals called pops or persistent organic pollutants or pops for short. These are things like oil-based things like pesticides, DDT, PCBs, and dioxins, which are very toxic to everybody, really. So, when we're handling this, you always need to use gloves, so it won't get on your hands. So, what happens to plastic in the ocean is that it accumulates those pops up to one million times more concentrated on the surface of the plastic than the surrounding seawater, meaning that plastic marine debris is toxic plastic because it acts like a sponge and just soaks in all of these toxic chemicals. So, you should never handle marine debris without a glove on. Wow, wow. I'm thinking of all the pounds of marine debris I've handled over the years. Yeah, so it gets into your skin, you know. Lovely, it gets into your skin. Yeah, yeah, because that's why, you know, when you rub creams on your skin, it absorbs in. Sure. So, really, what these toxins do is they're endocrine disruptors. They act like a synthetic estrogen in your body and they cause things like breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes and obesity and what are immune diseases, a whole range of things. So, it's very dangerous stuff. Well, in a strange way, though, the plastic is cleaning. In a way, yes. It's cleaning the ocean. If you can get it out of there quick enough, yeah. But as you can, I don't know if you guys can zoom in on here at all. Can you see those little pieces that have broken down? Oh, yeah, I think they can. Those little dots, they kind of look like dust. That's little pieces of plastic dust, okay? And that's what happens all the time is that the plastic marine debris is so brittle, even though it's absorbing the pops, but it's also breaking down and photodegrading in the sun. So, this stuff gets eaten by the base of the food chain like the plankton and they pass the chemicals, they bioaccumulate up through the food chain from plankton all the way to humans and other larger mammals. Yeah. I had no idea. Yeah, so the fish that, if you eat fish, or, you know, it could, you may not see the plastic, but it could contain the chemicals that we've actually put in the ocean into the fish. Right, so this is why plastic bags aren't just harmful to sea turtles, but they're also harmful to whales. They ingest the whole bag. They're harmful to the plankton, the fish, and even ourselves if humans are eating fish, they're getting those chemicals in their food. Well, do we know how those chemicals are getting in the ocean? Well, with the DDT and DDE, it was actually banned in, I think, 1972 in the US, but it's still used in developing countries to control malaria. And also the reason it's called persistent organic pollutant, by the way, don't see that word organic as being good, is because it stays in the ocean. It stays in the environment. You can't get rid of that stuff. So even though it was banned in 1972, it's still out in the ocean. So it's accumulating onto the plastic. Wow, well, on that cheery note, we're gonna take a little break and then come back. Aloha, my name is Steven Philip Katz. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and I'm the host of Shrink Rap Hawaii, where I talk to other shrinks. Did you ever want to get your head shrunk? Well, this is the best place to come to pick one. I've been doing this. We must have 60 shows with a whole bunch of shrinks that you can look at. I'm here on Tuesdays at three o'clock every other Tuesday. I hope you are too. Aloha. This crazy world, so caught up in the confusion. Nothing is making sense for me and how to make a product. Welcome back to Hawaii Is My Main Land. I'm Kaui Lukas. And with me today is Suzanne Frazier and Dean Otsuki of Beach, which I forget yet. It's an acronym for... Yeah, Beach Environmental Awareness Campaign, who are? Oh, you put it on your t-shirts. I should have looked. Thank you, that's really handy. So we're talking about the city and county of Honolulu. The derelict county has not been able to get its stuff together to pass a decent bag ban. But now, bill 52. Nine. Nine, 59, 59. CD2, it's got two FD versions, floor draft versions, one and two. So those have both been voted on. No, the FD1 is the current version of the bill. Yes. The FD2 is a proposed version. Okay, so FD1 was voted on. Last month. Last month. And who voted for it? So who voted for it were council members, Pine, Anderson, Manahan, and Elefonte. Do we have... Oh, sorry, which one did you ask about? FD1. Oh, scrap that, totally wrong. Okay, who voted for FD1, right? The floor draft one. Okay, Martin, Manor, Kobayashi, Ozawa, and Fukunaga. Okay, and that's the one you don't want. Yes. Okay, so that one passed, and then how did FD2 happen? FD2 is a proposed version that was presented at the last council meeting. So complicated because at the last council meeting, it was actually, Carol Fukunaga's bill was actually called CD2, committee draft two, and Elefonte's proposed version was called floor draft one. So her version had passed committee and he walked into the council member, he brought into the council meeting a floor draft one. But then to trick things up, she walked in with a floor draft one as well. So there were two floor draft ones at the last meeting. And the council had to decide which one they were going to change the committee draft to. And they ended up voting for Carol Fukunaga's floor draft one. What happened, however, was that she only presented her floor draft that day. So it was under the 48 hours and there's some sort of rule that if there's 48 hours, less than 48 hours, you have to have another vote to see if that can be waived. And so when that vote was taken, four council members were objecting to a waiving the 48 hour rule. So those four council members, sorry, I read their names before, are Pine, Anderson, Manahan, and Elefante. So they were objecting because they support a plastic bag ban and they spoke very eloquently about why we need a plastic bag ban. And I was so heartened by that because previously there'd only been one or two council members supporting the bill, but now there were four. So again, those four are Pine, Manahan, Anderson, Anderson, and then the guy, Elefante, Elefante, granted, we love Brandon, who has really stepped up to the plate on this. Yes, he has, because the original bill is his bill, but it went to Carol's committee and she's made a lot of changes to that bill. So he's continuing to try to get a better version out there and that's why he tried at the last council meeting to bring in a floor draft. However, his floor draft didn't get heard because she brought in a floor draft. So that's why hers is now called floor draft one and he's trying again. So he's bringing in a floor draft two to try again. And it's on the agenda, so it will be heard. Well, it can be heard, it's up to, I mean, who knows, there could be the same thing happen where Carol might show up with a floor draft two and we'll be back to the same problem again, which one do they pick? But every meeting we've been to lately, Carol has brought in another version of the bill right on the day of the hearing without us being able to see it go. So would that kick in the 48 hour rule again? It might, yes. So what happens with the 48 hour rule that I found out was that if they're able to waive the 48 hour rule and if they're able to vote finally on that bill, they actually have to get, instead of a majority vote of five out of nine council members, they need six out of council, six out of nine to pass the bill. And because they had four people objecting last time, they didn't have six votes. And that's why it got held over to this month to be heard again. Okay, so the thing that people can do to really help make a substantive bill happen next week is especially those people who are in areas that are represented by those who did not vote for Elefante's bill. So again, those are... Oh, those are in the area of Mililani, Waikele. Just the names. Oh, okay, Ron Menor's area, Anne Kobayashi, Trevor Azawa, Carol Foukenaga, and Ernest Martin. So just quickly, it's the North Shore, Mililani, the Kaimaki area and Palolo, the Waikai area, and the Nuanu-Kalei area. So those are major areas on the island that really need to step up and call their council member, tell them that they support a ban on plastic checkout bags. And would their council member please also support a ban on plastic checkout bags? Okay, that's one thing they can do. That's one thing they need to do. They can also do online testimony that's open right now. And they can also testify in person down at the council hearing on the 7th of June. The meeting starts at 10, but guess what, the agenda's 45 pages long and bill 59's on page 35. So we're estimating, I'm just estimating, but maybe around five o'clock in the afternoon to head down there to Honolulu-Halei. They've also been known to change the order. They have, that's why I said, I'm estimating. So best thing for people to do if they wanna give verbal testimony, which we'd really love people to do, is to keep an eye on the proceedings Honolulu or they can go online. It's broadcast live online. Wow, that's a lot. But in the meantime, they can submit testimony online too. And the information for that was on that screen that we were just showing. Oh, it was? Oh, good, I didn't see it. There it is. Oh, great. There it is again. Yeah. Tell them to vote no on bill 59, FD1 and yes for FD2. Perfect. It's very, it's, I haven't heard about this situation where you have two versions and it gets, I'm not terribly familiar with the counsel's process anyway. Well, I think anyone can bring in a proposed floor draft. Anyone can. Luckily, Elefante's floor draft got put on the agenda. So by putting it on the agenda, several days ahead of the meeting means that he will only need five votes. That means we're looking for just one more council member. One more. Yes. Oh, come on. Maybe Trevor, my council member. He's our council member too. Yeah, so there's, you've got three votes right here, Trevor. Anyway, yeah, and my gosh, when you think about the coastline involved in Trevor Ozawa's district, it's amazing. Well, it runs from Waikiki all the way to Sandy Beach, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. If there's ever a stretch of Hawaii's beach that needs this, it's certainly, certainly that. Definitely, definitely. Okay, and we have, I don't know that we need to have any more reasons, but if you were gonna, in the last minute, say one more reason why it's really important for this bill. Well, we're a little island in the middle of Pacific surrounded by water with endangered and threatened species in it. And they include sea totals, like the leatherback sea turtle that could go extinct in the next 10, 15 years. So we need to protect those marine animals. It's super important that the FD2 passes and that we get rid of plastic damage. Oh, thank you both for coming. That brings us to the end of another episode of Hawaii Is My Main Land. I'm your host, Kawi Lukas. My guests have been Suzanne Fraser and Dean Otsuki. Learn more at www.b-e-a-c-h.org Thanks to our production engineer, Robert McClain, our floor manager, Cindy Manufekai, and all the people who care and contribute to our ThinkTech productions. If you want to see or share this show, go to thinktechhawaii.com or youtube.com slash thinktechhawaii. There will be a link to more shows just like this one. Thank you so much for joining us today. We'll see you in the next episode. There will be a link to more shows just like this one. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Aloha.