Planting trees is the need of the hour. But if you have ever planted a tree, you would know that saplings are usually kept in plastic bags or containers before being planted. Now, the world is actively rising to the need of planting more trees because of global warming and climate change, but plastic is the biggest contributor in the category of trash that cannot be disposed off. So there seems to be something wrong with using more plastic to plant more trees, no??
To tackle the use of plastic and restrict its use, the IFS officers in the Andaman islands are taking the initiative to use bamboo pots instead of plastic bags, to grow saplings in. This is being done in one of the nurseries in Jirkatang village, reportedly under the division of Vipul Pandey, an IFS officer who is working as Assistant Conservator of Forest, in the South Andaman Division.?
“There was too much plastic surrounding us. It started with the nursery with thousands of plants and eventually, I knew it would end up in the oceans. When I raised this concern, my staff echoed my worries and told me that they too wanted to get rid of the plastic. They just didn’t know how,” The Better India quoted the IFS officer as saying.?
?
Vipul Pandey
The Gujarat Forest Department (GFD), last year, took the eco-friendly decision of planting sapling in coconuts.
The IFS officers in the Andaman islands tried to do the same, but they realised that the nursery in Jirkatang could not grow well in the coconut shells. So they thought of coming up with something different.?
After a lot of experimentation and consideration, they decided to go ahead with bamboo. He reportedly said, “Andaman has a good amount of Chattai bamboo, mainly cultivated commercially. For the first batch of these pots, we got hold of 500 bamboos that were cut off from the stem and discarded. This was the perfect start.”?
?
Vipul Pandey
Talking about testing the bamboo pots and how sapling roots will expand he reportedly said, “The roots of the saplings do not get coiled. While replanting them, one needs to give a sharp hit to the bamboo stems, just like one does in case of the plastic pots. But the best part is that the bamboo can be reused for another sapling. Even if it breaks, it can simply be discarded and it will decompose. We are still trying to experiment with different species of the grass and for more purposes.”
?
This is a commendable initiative and other states and cities in India should learn from this.?