Always on
This project successfully funded on 9th March 2026, you can still support them with a donation.
This project successfully funded on 9th March 2026, you can still support them with a donation.
After six years watching our saplings at Mooncroft grow it's time to remove and recycle the plastic tree guards that have kept them safe.
Mooncroft is a family-scale reforesting and rewilding project that we began nearly ten years ago, with the aim of transforming 47 acres of rough grazing land near Penicuik into a more biodiverse, productive and inspiring landscape. We've planted over 16,000 trees, and while we received some grant funding to help cover a percentage of the initial work to plant and deer-fence the saplings, there is no financial support for the massive job of removing and recycling the tree guards.
By this stage, the trees are starting to outgrow the guards. These can damage the trees by trapping moisture against the trunks, encouraging mould, fungi and pests. The guards also become brittle with exposure to sunlight and wind, and can shatter, leaving fragments in the ground.
Luckily, we are timing our tree guard removal just right and have found some great people to work with! Rainbow Recycling is a scheme that takes used plastic tree guards, processes them, and recycles them into new plastic products for use in woodland creation. They will collect and recycle our guards for a minimum fee of £500.
We’ve also had wonderful help from Dirty Weekenders, a University of Edinburgh society, who have been coming out to the land in groups of 20–30 students, braving the winter weather to remove the guards (up until then, it was me and the kids chipping away at it!).
We are asking for your help with some of the costs of removal and recycling. We make a donation each time the students come out to help, to cover their costs (transport, food, etc.), as well as the fee for the plastic recycling scheme itself.
Anything we raise over our target will be put directly towards planting additional larch, alder and silver birch on the land this winter, as these species have done particularly well.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made