Council completes chewing gum cleaning project

Cheshire West and Chester Council has announced it has completed its work to remove the chewing gum blighting local streets after receiving over £25,700 to tackle the issue earlier this year.

The Council was one of 52 across the country that successfully applied to the Chewing Gum Task Force, now in its fourth year, for funds to clean gum off pavements and prevent further gum littering.

Cleansing teams have carried out targeted jet washing in hotspot areas and bright pink, attention-grabbing stickers have been applied to bin in the city centre asking people to bin their gum.

The Task Force is funded by major gum manufacturers including Mars Wrigley and Perfetti Van Melle, with an investment of up to £10 million spread over five years.

Established by Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and run by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, the Chewing Gum Task Force Grant Scheme is open to councils across the UK who wish to clean up gum in their local areas and invest in long-term behaviour change to prevent gum from being dropped in the first place.

Monitoring and evaluation carried out by Behaviour Change – a not-for-profit social enterprise - has shown that in areas that benefitted from the first year of funding, a reduced rate of gum littering was still being observed six months after the clean-up and installation of prevention materials.

The Council’s Cabinet Member for Community Safety and Neighbourhood Pride, Councillor Stuart Bingham said:

"We were delighted to receive this funding from Keep Britain Tidy to tackle this sticky problem. Specialist contractors were used to remove chewing gum in hot spot areas in Chester’s city centre. Everyone can play their part, by disposing of their chewing gum responsibly, rather than dropping it on the ground.”

Estimates suggest the annual clean-up cost of chewing gum for councils in the UK is around £7 million and, according to Keep Britain Tidy, around 77% of England’s streets and 99% of retail sites are stained with gum.

A spokesperson for Keep Britain Tidy said:

“Chewing gum continues to be an unsightly form of litter in our public spaces – though thankfully the scheme is leading to significant reductions. People need to remember that disposing irresponsibly of their gum causes harm to our environment as it takes years to decompose naturally – and, ultimately, costs the public purse to clean it up.”

By combining targeted street cleaning with specially designed signage to encourage people to bin their gum, participating councils last year achieved reductions in gum littering of up to 60% in the first two months.