The Sticky Issue of Chewing Gum on Leatherhead’s Streets

Joint Waste Solutions Awarded Funding to Tackle the Sticky Issue of Chewing Gum on Leatherhead’s Streets. A grant from the Chewing Gum Task Force, administered by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, will help Mole Valley District Council (MVDC) clean up gum and reduce future gum littering.

 

Joint Waste Solutions is putting plans in place to remove the chewing gum that blights local streets after receiving grant funding of just under £7,000 to tackle the issue in Leatherhead. Work scheduled to last around five days began on Sunday 18 August 2024, focusing on the High Street and Church Street. The bid specified Leatherhead because the town had not been the subject of gum cleaning before, and this work supports the vision to ‘transform’ Leatherhead as part of MVDC’s regeneration programme.

The organisation is one of 54 across the country that have successfully applied to the Chewing Gum Task Force, now in its third year, for funds to clean gum off pavements and prevent it from being littered again.

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.

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.

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.

MVDC’s Cabinet Member for Community Services, Councillor Rosemary Hobbs, said: “Securing grant funding from Keep Britain Tidy and the Chewing Gum Taskforce and gum manufacturers to deep clean Leatherhead’s streets is a positive step and is something that I’m very pleased to support. I’m sure the town’s residents will be very happy to see gum removed from pavements and signage displayed that will help prevent future littering and keep the streets looking their best.”

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.

In its second year the task force awarded 55 councils a total of £1.56 million, helping clean an estimated 440,000 m2 of pavement – an area equivalent to the Vatican City.

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

Allison Ogden-Newton OBE, Keep Britain Tidy’s chief executive, said: “Chewing gum litter is highly visible on our high streets and is both difficult and expensive to clean up, so the support for councils provided by the Chewing Gum Task Force and the gum manufacturers is very welcome.

“However, once the gum has been cleaned up, it is vital to remind the public that when it comes to litter, whether it’s gum or anything else, there is only one place it should be – in the bin – and that is why the behaviour change element of the task force’s work is so important.”

The Chewing Gum Task Force: The Chewing Gum Task Force brings together some of the UK’s major chewing gum producers (Mars Wrigley and Perfetti Van Melle) in a new partnership to remove gum litter from UK high streets and prevent future littering. The scheme, administered by independent charity Keep Britain Tidy, sees the chewing gum firms invest up to £10 million over five years to achieve two objectives; cleaning up historic gum staining and changing behaviour so that more people bin their gum.  

 

In the two years of the scheme, specially designed signage to encourage people to bin their gum, combined with targeted street cleaning by the participating councils, achieved reductions in gum littering of between 60% and 80% in the first two months. Less gum litter was still being observed six months after clean-ups and the use of prevention materials.

Behaviour Change: www.behaviourchange.org.uk Behaviour Change is a not-for-profit social enterprise, founded in 2009. They create social and environmental change, with big ideas grounded in behavioural science. Through a 5-year innovation programme and collaboration with chewing gum manufacturer Mars Wrigley, they created and tested a range of ways to encourage responsible behaviour, which resulted in local reductions of gum littering by up to 64%. These interventions have now been made available for deployment by councils as part of the Gum Task Force Grant Scheme. Intervention toolkit: www.tacklegumlittering.co.uk

Keep Britain Tidy is a leading environmental charity. We set the standard for the management of parks and beaches, inspire people to be litter-free, to waste less and live more sustainably. We run campaigns and programmes including the Great British Spring Clean, Eco-Schools, Love Parks, the Green Flag Award for parks and green spaces and the Blue Flag/ Seaside Awards for beaches. To find out more about Keep Britain Tidy, our campaigns and programmes visit www.keepbritaintidy.org.

Joint Waste Solutions (JWS) manages a joint waste, recycling and street cleaning contract in Elmbridge, Mole Valley, Surrey Heath and Woking. The JWS team also develops countywide initiatives on behalf of the Surrey Environment Partnership which aim to increase recycling, reduce waste and tackle other environmental issues. Visit www.jointwastesolutions.org to find out more.