Following up on considered one of its Local weather Change Plan commitments to cut back its plastic waste, Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) is introducing biodegradable tree shelters.

The step comes after FLS’ procurement staff held discussions with shelter provider, Cheviot Timber, on discovering methods of changing into extra sustainable, notably on discovering environmentally pleasant alternate options to single-use, plastic tree shelters.

Gareth Waters, FLS’ interim head of operational help, mentioned:

“Our Local weather Change Plan commits us to changing into extra sustainable throughout the board and phasing out single-use plastics is excessive on our to-do listing.

This new biodegradable product shouldn’t be solely good for the surroundings and for wildlife however may even liberate time for our native foresters who will not want to assemble up used tree shelters.

“We’re now encouraging all of our groups throughout the nation to make the environmentally pleasant, sustainable alternative.

“It’s one of many first, huge steps on our journey and we’re trying ahead to adopting different modern options as we head in direction of Web Zero.”

Use of tree shelters

Tree shelters are vitally vital to guard younger seedlings and timber from shopping harm from deer and different animals.

Yearly, FLS makes use of roughly 200,000 of them, and accumulating them for appropriate disposal eats up time that may very well be higher spent on different forest administration exercise.

The brand new product (Tubex Nature) is manufactured from biodegradable polymers derived from biomass.

Jonathan Cameron, Cheviot Timber’ gross sales and advertising and marketing supervisor, mentioned;

“We now have been working carefully with our manufacturing companions over the previous few years to assist develop a intelligent and modern biodegradable resolution that gives dependable safety to younger timber.”

We’re happy to supply this subsequent technology of tree shelters to Forestry and Land Scotland.

They’re of specific use in areas the place accumulating shelters could be troublesome or generally inconceivable, resembling dense woodland or locations which might be in any other case laborious to get to.