Funds for gum removal
17 August 2022
In what could be good news for companies hiring or selling equipment that can remove chewing gum and clean pavements, the government has awarded grants of up to £70,000 to more than 40 councils across the UK to help remove the unsightly deposits from high streets.
Exeter, Birmingham, Sunderland, Swansea, Glasgow and Belfast are among the first winners of funding as part of a Chewing Gum Task Force established by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and run by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy.
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 87 per cent of England’s streets are stained with gum.
The funding is the first tranche of a package worth up to £10 million from major gum manufacturers including Mars Wrigley and Perfetti Van Melle, over five years.
Funding will cover grants of up £20,000 for councils including Leicester, Hull, Croydon, Southend, Lewisham and Colchester to purchase cleaning equipment as well as receiving signage to warn people not to drop gum.
Four councils in Belfast, Birmingham, Glasgow and Newport have received funding for long-term monitoring of gum litter levels and the effects of intervention.
