Completion of a chewing gum cleaning project with funding to tackle the issue on Gravesham’s streets.
The council has been working to a project to clean up gum and reduce people littering gum on the streets.
The project has been with helped by a Chewing Gum Task Force grant, administered by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy. The council was one of 54 across the country that was successful in a bid for funding, and received £27,160 for the project. The Chewing Gum Task Force is in its third year and provides funds to clean gum off the streets.
Over the last few months the street cleansing teams:
- Worked to remove chewing gum staining from pavements across 19 streets in Gravesend town centre, covering 14,500 square metres
- Deep cleaned pavements to remove ingrained dirt and grime
- Installed signage from Behaviour Change to discourage future chewing gum littering
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 clean-up and the installation of prevention materials.
Cllr Emma Morley, cabinet member for operational services, said: “We are grateful to the Chewing Gum Task Force for their support in our battle to keep our streets cleaner and safer.
“That doesn’t end now – it will continue, as will our efforts to educate those who still think it’s acceptable to drop gum on the pavement; it isn’t and never will be. And it’s a quite frankly disgusting habit that leaves others picking it out of their shoes and carpets at home having unwittingly trodden in discarded gum.
“This work will run alongside that of our cleansing team who collect 8 tonnes of waste and litter around the borough every day, and our ever-growing community of volunteer street champions who take the time and make the effort to keep their neighbourhoods clean.”
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.
Allison Ogden-Newton OBE, Chief Executive of Keep Britain Tidy, said: “Thankfully the majority of people who chew gum dispose of it responsibly. But for those who don’t, cleaning gum and the resulting staining it causes off our pavements costs councils millions of pounds every year.
“We know this issue won’t be solved overnight, even in areas where the gum has been cleaned up, but we’re confident that with innovation, research and small behaviour changes provided through the Chewing Gum Task Force, together we can tackle this sticky issue.”
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.