My smart and savvy colleague Shani Hilton has just linked to some new research demonstrating that the District's nearly two-year-old bag tax has been a success. Allow me to dissent. Well, sorta.
Oh, sure, Shani's argument seems to have all kinds of "statistics" on its side, demonstrating that the tax has meant fewer plastic bags, and [...]

The District of Columbia is about a month away from having to pay five cents a pop for its plastic bags, and some details are yet to be worked out.
Such as: What about the self-checkout facilities increasingly populating city supermarkets—how are they going to work with the bag fee? After all, there's no human to [...]

At least, that's the lesson that I took away from Sunday's grocery delivery from the Giant Food-associated service.
Quick background: In a post last week, I noted how Peapod was using more plastic bags than could ever be environmentally excusable, and included a picture of a small, Pillsbury processed food product that came in its [...]

There are so many things I love about Peapod. One, I don't have to wait in grocery-store lines anymore. Two, the Peapod people are fantastic. Three, the deliveries are painless and easy to schedule. Four, the Web-shopping interface is easy to navigate.
Yet one important consideration falls in the minus column, and that's Peapod's uncanny [...]

The wife and I share a personal joke about our beagle mix, Coltrane (beagle crossed with pig, we say, but that's not the joke). We've created this whole belief system for Coltrane (also known as Meatsack) based on one incident: While we were walking our sweet hound one day, a stray bag floated by on [...]