March 27, 2012 Revising the By-Law

City Council is looking at amendments to the Bag Ban By-Law.

Check out the proposed ammendment.

http://www.woodbuffalo.ab.ca/Assets/00assets/living/beautification/recycling/Single-Use+Bylaw+8.5+x+11+-+FULL+FINAL+SET.pdf

An outcome of the Bag Ban is that many cheap bags are available at stores. People often will buy a $1 bag when they forget one, and now have too many bags floating around their houses.

Students and staff at Ecole Dickinsfield School came up with an innovative solution the problem: Take a Bag, Leave a Bag. Modelled on the "Take a penny, leave a penny" idea, customers can bring their extra bags to stores to leave in designated boxes. If they forget a bag, they can grab one.

Students, staff and parents are excited with this idea.

Check out the Today Paper article.

Single-Use Bag Ban is staying!

On October 25th, 2011, City Council reviewed the results of the survey done to see if citizens continue to support the Single-Use Bag Ban. 56% of people were in favour of the ban, 37% opposed, and 7% neutral. Of businesses, about it was about half and half for and against. After a thorough discussion, City Council voted unanimously to continue the Bag Ban. Recommendations for modifications will come to council in March.

See the Today Paper article here.

The Bag Monster made a 5 minute presentation to city council on why we should keep the ban.

Single-Use Shopping Bag Bylaw Evaluation

The Municipality of Wood Buffalo is conducting an evaluation of the ban, since we are nearing the one year mark of the ban's implementation.

The city is interviewing 600 businesses and 600 randomly phoned residents.

You can also give your input at http://www.recycle-more.ca/

Please take the 10 minutes to fill it out. The program will accept one survey per computer.

The deadline is August 15. Since many people are out of town on holidays and might not know about this, can you please forward this link to everyone who can share their thoughts.

By Sept. 1, we will have kept 50 million bags from local landfill.

We continue to be part of a global movement, and people are aware of our city's efforts. Santa Monica CA and Browsville Texas both banned single use plastic bags, as has the whole country of Italy. We're a leader in banning all single-use bags, not just plastic. Way to go Fort McMurray! Let's keep supporting the ban.

Problems With Plastic Bags

Check out this GREAT prezi by Akshaya, Grade 7,
on the problems with plastic bags.
Click here

Albatrosses Dying of Plastic

Photo by Chris Jordan, albatross

Albatrosses are sea birds that mistake plastic washed up on shore for food. This photo is taken by Chris Jordan, who has taken dozens of photos of albatrosses that have died in the South Pacific Ocean. The plastic is everything imaginable - bottle caps, toothbrushes, parts of containers. The parent bird also feed plastic to their babies, so they're dying too.
Check out more photos here
Check out Youtubes of Midway Island and the problem here

You must see this! Click here

Italy Banned The Plastic Bag

On January 1, 2011 Italy banned all plastic single-use bags from being distributed in stores. It's the first entire country in Europe to ban the plastic bag. Fort McMurray is still further along since we've banned single use bags of all materials (paper, corn, etc.)

Check it out AOLnews Fox Business Treehugger