Matt Gove of Surfrider Foundation supports Intro 896 but opposes compostable loophole

Yeah, I'm here for the bill about reusable and single-use cups that's on the agenda.

Go for it.

Oh, we're doing it all right now.

This is you.

This is your chance to give your three minutes of glory.

All right.

Well, I thank you all for hearing this bill.

And sorry, I lost track of what was going on with the first issue on the agenda that was going on for the last two hours.

I'm Matt Gove from the Surfrider Foundation, and we appreciate Councilmember Epstein's bill to try to reduce single-use cups used by city government.

I think everyone knows now.

How much damage plastic has to human health, and also how much garbage it creates, and the city has to pay to get rid of that garbage, and when that garbage is burned, it releases lots of pollutants.

So we thank you for the bill, and I've heard there are rumors that the text may change.

We're very concerned with the text.

Where it says the city can just

replace those single-use cups with compostable cups.

Compostable sounds good, but it's one of those rabbit holes that you go down and then you are not wanting to use one of these compostable cups because they're just as bad, sometimes even worse than just a regular throwaway cup.

So we're hoping that'll be taken out.

Really, the only option is a reusable cup, or if you have to, there's those very thin aluminum cups that can be reused or easily recycled.

So sadly for cups, there's not a lot of options, but reusable always works.

So we thank you for this bill and thanks for the time to testify.

Thank you so much, Matt.

We really appreciate your thoughtful testimony in support of Councilmember Epstein's legislation around compostable cups.

And we're really happy to have the chance to have a hearing on it today.

We'll now go to Ms.

Eve Fox.