SIR - On page five of the Craven Herald on February 13, you ask for volunteers to ‘litter pick’ redundant tree guards in Settle.

These plastic petrochemical polluting tree guards are still being used and in fact I understand that in all new grant aided planting, it is compulsory to use tree guards.

Not only are they ugly and do not biodegrade, they are also expensive and cost roughly three times as much as the tree they are designed to protect.

How can it be right to insist on their use when supermarkets, businesses and manufacturers are all striving to reduce unnecessary use of plastic packaging.

If tree guards are not used, the money saved will allow the planting of two or three times the number of trees which allows for even abnormally high predation on the trees by vermin.

The countryside would not be blighted by polluting litter and the trees would be stronger and healthier because the plastic tubes ‘force’ the young trees like rhubarb making them weaker and more prone to disease.

When we are all trying to reduce our use of plastic, why on earth are we planting more plastic every time we plant a tree.

Tubes were first used about 1973. All our great forests were planted before tubes were thought of. We don’t need them and we don’t want them

David Harrison

Beamsley

Skipton