Hounslow Council Goes on Chewing Gum Blitz
Wins funding from Keep Britain Tidy to clean streets
A street cleaning machine removing chewing gum in Hounslow
December 5, 2024
Hounslow Council has removed discarded chewing gum from the borough’s streets after winning funding from Keep Britain Tidy.
It has recently completed a cleaning project enabled by a £27,500 grant from the charity given earlier this year.
The borough was one of 54 across the country that 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 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.
The Cleansing team carried out activities over the last few months and didn’t only remove gum and gum staining from pavements put cleaned off gum from stickers and posters on lampposts and litter bine.
As well as cleaning up gum, the scheme also focuses on 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.
Councillor Shivraj Grewal, lead member for Infrastructure, Recycling and Transformation at Hounslow Council, said, “It is great to have the support of Keep Britain Tidy and their Chewing Gum Task Force to keep our streets clean and tidy. This funding plays a huge part in tackling this unsightly issue.
“We know that most of our residents who chew gum dispose of it responsibly. For those who don’t, it is not ok to drop your gum – please bin your gum. Not only does carelessly discarded chewing gum make Hounslow’s streets look grim and dirty, but it is also extremely difficult and costly to remove.”
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.
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