RETAILING: Poor Taste In Waste

It was probably inevitable that the mania for designer chocolates, designer underwear, designer everything would one day lead to -- designer trash bags. Sure enough, in time for Christmas, retailer Neiman-Marcus came out with festive red bags bearing its logo. Displayed at 22 U.S. stores and priced as high as $6.25 for a pack of 20, the sacks were touted as the "aesthetic way to dispose of life's debris." In the garbage-handling industry, however, the color red is an almost universal symbol for infectious hospital waste, which calls for special treatment. When waste-management officials in Maryland complained about the potential for confusion, Neiman-Marcus promptly stopped selling the red bags in its nearby Washington store. But the colored sacks have sold so well that the retailer plans to bring out a spring line in beige, coral and jade.