Plastic snap-on cup lids are inexpensive and permanently shelf stable, but their virtues end about there. Large boxes each holding 1,000 of them take up significant shelf space in already snug ...

The convenience plastic offers through single-use straws, water bottles and disposable coffee cups comes at no small cost to the environment, but we are growing more aware of the damage they cause.

Derek Mogen, store manager of Wired Bean Coffee in East Grand Forks, has been paying 50% more for plastic cups now as he did this spring. “In March, we were only paying $80 for a thousand cups,” Mogen ...