Who’ll Be Left Holding the Bag?

It has become part of our everyday vocabulary, the question most asked at grocery-store checkout counters:

“Paper or plastic?”

Nationwide, about 60% of consumers go with plastic bags, says Steven Koff, president of the Southern California Grocers Assn. No figures are available locally, but many grocery chains in the area report that their customers support that trend.

One Southern California grocery chain, though, is sticking with paper bags. “We’ve been tackling this issue for years,” says Russell Parker, purchasing director for Mrs. Gooch’s, a Sherman Oaks-based chain whose seven stores do more than $75 million in business annually.

According to Parker, Mrs. Gooch’s isn’t swayed by manufacturers’ claims that some plastic bags biodegrade in two to five years or when exposed to sunlight. “I haven’t seen any studies done that said, ‘Yes, we put this in a typical landfill and it broke down within five years.’ Some things do not biodegrade, which is why archeologists have jobs.”

And there is another, more philosophical issue involved, Parker said.

“It’s about the throw it away mentality: ‘That’s OK, throw it away, it will biodegrade in two years.’ ”

In the meantime, many people are using plastic bags to tote their aluminum cans and plastic bottles to recycling centers.

Dogging the Truth

International Guiding Eyes in Sylmar has been teaming up guide dogs with blind people for 42 years. What amazes Jane Brackman, the nonprofit organization’s general manager, is that certain myths about the dogs have endured just as long.

First is their name.

“They’re called guide dogs,” Brackman begins. “Seeing Eye dogs is actually the trademark of the Seeing Eye School in New Jersey.”

The biggest misunderstanding involves how the dogs are trained. “People think the dog is guiding the blind person around, like the dog knows when the light changes or where the barbershop is. The dog doesn’t know that--it just waits for a verbal cue from the blind person,” she says.

So it is actually the person who listens for traffic noises and decides when to cross the street.

“It’s the dog’s job to sense danger and to disobey the command if the dog feels it’s not a safe situation,” Brackman says, adding that Labrador and golden retrievers, as well as the more common German shepherds, are used as guide dogs.

The dog trains for about five months before it’s teamed up with a blind person, who learns 20 different commands. Blind people stay at the facility for about a month and receive eight hours of training almost every day.

International Guiding Eyes trains 40 to 50 “teams” each year, at a cost of $10,000 to the donor-funded organization and no cost to the blind person.

The organization is always looking for “puppy-raisers,” people who will provide a loving home for 15 months to guide dog puppies. Don’t worry about training the dog. “All we want at the end of 15 months is a dog that’s not afraid of loud noises, large crowds or congested traffic,” Brackman notes.

Basically, a dog that’s used to living in Los Angeles.

Metal Man

Lee Danziger of Pasadena is one of Los Angeles’ celebrated designers of furniture that doubles as art . . . or is it art that doubles as furniture?

Danziger, who describes his work as “deconstructive” or “retro tech,” uses raw materials such as steel, aluminum, wood and glass to build everything from a $700 metal coffee table to a $2,300 stone dining table.

About 40% of his clients live in the Valley, Danziger estimates, yet no Valley stores carry his work. Most of his patrons are in the entertainment industry and he laments the fact that they have to drive over the hill to stores such as Design Express, Civilization, and Blue Print to see his pieces.

Susan Jannol of Studio City discovered Danziger while leafing through Metropolitan Home magazine. She saw a picture of a table he created and subsequently commissioned him to make a stereo unit for her living room that included display shelves for her collection of Eskimo art. The $2,300 piece combines rusted and raw metals with wood, thick curvilinear glass and basic industrial hardware. Speaker wires are hidden inside conduit piping.

“When my mother-in-law saw the conduit, she asked, ‘Isn’t that supposed to be inside the wall instead of outside?’ Most of my friends have more traditional taste and they’ll say, ‘This is really great. This is definitely you, but I wouldn’t want it in my house.’ ”