South Ayrshire Council completes chewing gum cleaning project after receiving funding to tackle the issue on local streets
South Ayrshire Council is pleased to confirm that work has been completed to remove the chewing gum on local streets in Troon after receiving a £27,500 grant 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 chewing gum off pavements and prevent further chewing gum littering.
Among the activities cleansing teams have carried out over the past few weeks are street cleansing to remove chewing gum; spray painting templates on pavements encouraging the public to bin their chewing gum; and placing signage on posts promoting the initiative.
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 chewing gum in their local areas and invest in long-term behaviour change to prevent chewing 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 chewing gum littering was still being observed six months after the clean-up and installation of prevention materials.
South Ayrshire Council's Depute Chief Executive and Director of Housing, Operations and Development, Kevin Braidwood, said: "The Chewing Gum Task Force Grant Scheme has been a fantastic initiative which has enabled the Council to remove chewing gum from our local areas. Our contractor, Eco Removal Systems Ltd carried out an initial deep clean around Troon Town Centre, resulting in an amazing transformation, and our teams will be working across other areas of South Ayrshire over the coming months.
"We want South Ayrshire to be clean and tidy for our residents and visitors to enjoy and the Chewing Gum Task Force Grant has supported us in working towards this."
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 chewing 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 chewing gum, participating councils last year achieved reductions in chewing gum littering of up to 60% in the first two months.
