Plastic Bags

All of a sudden, the world is full of rhythmic noise: footsteps tapping, train wheels clacking, car doors slamming, computer keys clicking. Just as some pictures can heighten your awareness of color and shape, Stomp heightens your awareness of sound. How percussive the world is! Electrifying and funny (now there's an unusual combination), Stomp, currently at the Merriam Theater, is a wildly enjoyable show. It's been running for 13 years in New York. And before that in London. And it looks and feels as frisky and high-voltage as ever.

PLASTIC BAGS have been a fixture at markets and retailers for decades, valued for their durability and ease of use. But they also present environmental challenges, and many communities, government officials and retailers are in search of solutions. In some cases, bans on plastic bags are on the table, like Councilman Frank DiCicco's proposal in Philadelphia. But there is every reason to believe such bans, the subject of a Council hearing tomorrow, would do more harm than good and that other measures would be more effective.

SHOULD WE stuff the proposed plastic- bag ban being pushed by City Councilman Frank DiCicco into the same trash can as the foie gras ban, the proclamation of the city as official pro-choice, and some of the other crazy ideas that Council has tackled? Not this time. The measure, which would ban plastic bags from large supermarkets, tackles a problem that affects everyone, not just the foie-gras-munching class. The non-biodegradable bags blight our streets and defile our trees. And we usually have little choice to use them; stores rarely ask "paper or plastic?"

RE CITY Council's quality-of-life issues: The only things they are concerned with are banning foie gras, plastic bags and Styrofoam containers. What's next, banning the use of candy wrappers and plastic and paper cups? I see plenty of them flying around, but City Council won't ban them. Why doesn't Council do some real work? Edward Dubin, Philadelphia

Airtight, stackable and space-efficient, these modular stacking units come in square and rectangular shapes and have a unique push-button mechanism that creates an airtight seal with one pop. (The 4-quart size holds a 5-pound bag of flour or sugar.) The pop-up button serves as a handle to lift the lid, which also comes apart for thorough cleaning. Milk Duds kicked up a notch If you're looking to revive the chewy satisfaction of the Milk Duds you savored as a child, do it adult-style with Naked Chocolate Cafe's tasty Sea Salt Caramels covered with premium milk and dark chocolate.

When Robert Sachs was a young boy in North Carolina, his mother bundled him up and tied garbage bags around his feet on cold days. The plastic bags made him feel like an idiot, and didn't do much to keep out the cold or the wet. Neither did all the bundling. "Mom would just pile all this stuff on us," he said. "You just sweat through everything. " These days, Sachs, 26, an all-season hiker from Manayunk, has exchanged his plastic bags for polypropylene, a plastic fiber that wicks water away from the body.

Buried in the basement of a five-story brick West Philadelphia apartment building, it was a marvel of organization: an illegal copying operation that had, by police count, a stockpile of more than 8,000 CDs and DVDs. Yesterday, authorities said they had broken up the operation at 48th and Walnut Streets, arresting one man - whom police did not identify - on suspicion of trademark counterfeiting, and seizing goods with titles ranging from Rocky Balboa and Happy Feet to classics such as Cinderella.

In the advertising world, where fragmented media and products like TiVo have made it harder to capture an audience, the humble tote bag is rising. Sales of promotional products - useful, often cheap things that bear a company logo like that mug on your desk - reached an all-time high of more than $18 billion last year, according to Promotional Products Association International. They were up 4 percent, the association said, while TNS Media Intelligence reported that other forms of advertising spending rose 3 percent.

Police yesterday were trying to identify a woman whose partially nude and severely beaten body was found among trash at the Newman & Co. recycling center in Wissinoming. The woman, believed to be in her 20s or 30s and Asian, was found with her hands bound behind her back with duct tape at the plant at 6101 Tacony St. about 2 p.m. yesterday, police said. "It's an obvious homicide," said Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson. "It's under investigation. " The body was found by an employee who had been separating trash on a conveyor belt and noticed a leg sticking out of a plastic bag, Johnson said.

Grow green fund by taxing paper, plastic bags I urge our state legislators to approve Gov. Rendell's proposal for an $800 million bond issue and statewide referendum on his Growing Greener II environmental initiative. I also offer the following suggestion for additional revenue for these programs: a small tax on plastic and paper bags. San Francisco is considering a 17-cent charge on every paper or plastic bag that grocery shoppers take home. If approved, the fee would be the first in the United States, although several countries have similar initiatives.