Silk cotton trees disappearing from Nilphamari

NILPHAMARI, Oct 03: Silk cotton trees are gradually disappearing from the district.

Cotton of the silk cotton trees which were earlier used in making pillows and mattresses are seldom found in the district as those trees were sold to the wood traders and the wood traders sold those to the match factories for making match boxes and match sticks.

Sources said match boxes and match sticks are made of the trunk of the silk cotton trees as its woods are very soft and favourable for making it.

On the other hand at present there is no approach to plant the valuable and traditional tree which used to provide valuable cotton to make pillows and mattresses.

Sources said now-a-days pillows and mattresses are made of artificial cotton made of small unusable cut pieces of fabric collected from garment industries from Dhaka and Chattogram.

A silk cotton tree nearly produces 50 kg of cotton.

At present one kg cotton of cotton silk tree is being sold at Tk 300.

Observers demand that silk cotton trees should be planted in a planned way and department of forestry should do the needful.

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