Bag Ban Manifesto
Introduction “Single use” plastic retail bags are banned in Fort McMurray. This is the result of a passionate 2 year crusade by 16 year old Sean Graham who watched a documentary at his school and got a 2000 person petition and brought it to city council. Reasons for the ban are somewhat vague. Melissa Blake implied on the RMWB website that it is to reach the RMWB’s goal of reducing waste in the landfill by 50% by 2012. Sean’s reasons seem to be based on the environment and seems to focus on the landfill and the manufacturing process used to create the bags. There was very little opposition to the ban made to council, save for one fellow who made some seemingly feeble arguments that the law would unjustly impact the poor in the community who relied on public transportation, or walking to and from the grocery stores as well as concerns about shoplifting. So the ban passed with politicians and environmentally minded ci...