Gum firms to invest €11.62 million in cleaning up streets

10th of September 2021
Gum firms to invest €11.62 million in cleaning up streets

Major chewing gum producers have pledged up to £10 million over five years to help reduce gum litter.

Mars Wrigley, GlaxoSmithKline and Perfetti Van Melle are among the companies investing in the scheme. It will begin later this year and be managed by Keep Britain Tidy.

Around 87 per cent of England's streets are stained with gum, according to Keep Britain Tidy. And chewing gum litter costs UK towns and cities around €8 million a year to clean up.

"We are delighted to be working with Defra and the chewing gum industry to clean up gum from our streets - and critically stop it from being dropped in the first place," said Keep Britain Tidy's chief executive Allison Ogden-Newton.

The Chewing Gum Task Force will clean up historic gum staining and use behavioural interventions to encourage people to bin their gum.

"The stains of discarded chewing gum are a blight on our communities, spoiling our streets and wasting millions of pounds of taxpayers' money," said environment minister Rebecca Pow.

"This new scheme means that chewing gum producers will not only be helping to clean up towns and cities, but crucially they will also be taking action to prevent people from littering in the first place."

The Chewing Gum Task Force will have the opportunity to share best practice and research in gum cleansing and litter prevention.

The scheme forms part of a wider UK government initiative to tackle litter, protect the environment and regenerate high streets across the country.

 

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