New Form of Blight in South Berkeley

This was recently reported on the East Lorin Neighborhood Associations' Yahoo Group.

I began some gardening work on the median which has resulted in a
discovery of a new genre of crime and/or blight which I will call
the "trash plant". There was this large overgrown iris-like plant, a
large fronded plant with stalks of purple-blue flowers, that had
formed into a messy mass about 2 ft wide and 5 ft long and 2 ft high,
located in an unattended area between sidewalk and street. I wanted
to replace it with something more attractive. I began cutting it
down, and low and behold, so far I have found 68 separate items of
trash that had been placed inside the plant (and I'm not done cutting
yet). This plant has clearly been used as a trash receptacle for
many years. Trash discovered included some crime-related items such
as a wallet (empty) and a toy gun painted to look like a real gun.
Other trash found inside the plant include: 21 soda and beer cans, 9
beer bottles, 5 brandy bottles, 1 wine bottle, 1 battery-operated
clock, 1 pair scissors, 2 lighters, 11 plastic bags, 9 candy
wrappers, 2 packs cigarettes, 1 cough drop box, 2 cups, assorted wads
of kleenex/toilet paper, and several cigarette butts.

"We don't litter our neighborhood, we just stick all our trash inside
plants as we walk down the street."

Deborah