Watford Borough Council is putting plans in place to remove the chewing gum that blights local streets after receiving a £12,000 grant to tackle the issue.
The grant from the Chewing Gum Task Force, administered by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, will help Watford Borough Council clean up gum and reduce gum littering. The council is one of 52 across the country to successfully apply to the Chewing Gum Task Force, 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 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 scheme is funded by major gum manufacturers including Mars Wrigley and Perfetti Van Melle, with an investment of up to £10 million over five years.
Monitoring and evaluation by the not-for-profit ‘Behaviour Change’ shows that in areas benefiting from the first and second year of funding, reductions in gum littering of up to 80% were seen in the first two months. Reductions were also still observed six months after targeted street cleansing and installation of specially designed signage to encourage people to bin their gum.
Elected Mayor of Watford, Peter Taylor, said: “We’re really pleased to receive this funding to tackle chewing gum on Queens Road. Last year’s campaign made a real difference on St Albans Road, and we’re aiming to build on that in other locations around the town.
“A special thanks to the local businesses who have shown their support by displaying campaign signage in their windows. This collective effort will allow us to clean up our local areas and invest in long-term behaviour change to prevent gum from being dropped in the first place."
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 third year, the Chewing Gum Task Force awarded 54 councils grants worth a total of £1,585 million, helping clean an estimated 500,000 m² of pavements.
Allison Ogden-Newton OBE, Keep Britain Tidy’s chief executive, 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.”
