Exeter gets funding to tackle chewing gum on its streets

New funding will help Exeter City Council tackle the sticky issue of chewing gum on the city’s streets.

The money will be spent on a chewing gum removal team and liveried gum removal cart.Removal will initially be focussed on Sidwell Street but will extend to other parts of the city centre thereafter.

New signage will also be going up in the city later this summer, encouraging people to bin their gum responsibly.

Exeter City Council successfully obtained a £30,657 grant from the Chewing Gum Task Force, administered by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, to help clean up gum and reduce gum littering.

The City Council is one of 50 authorities across the country that successfully applied to the Chewing Gum Task Force, now in its fifth year, for funds to clean gum off pavements and prevent it from being littered in the first place.

The Chewing Gum Task Force grant scheme – established by Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and run by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy – 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 it 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.

In the past four years, the Task Force has awarded grants worth a total of £6.46 million, funding the cleaning of over 4.15 million square metres of pavements.

Monitoring and evaluation carried out by Behaviour Change – a not-for-profit social enterprise – has shown that in areas that benefitted from funding, a reduced rate of gum littering of up to 86% was seen in the first two months.

Reductions were still being observed six months after targeted street cleansing and the installation of specially designed signage to encourage people to bin their gum.

Cllr Ruth Williams, Deputy Leader and Lead Councillor Support Services and City Management, said: “I am delighted with this award, which will go a long way towards tackling the issue of gum on our streets.

“It’s great to have the money to pay for the streets to be cleaned but we hope that the signs can be a talking point and really encourage people to change their behaviour and bin their gum in the future.”

According to Keep Britain Tidy, around 77% of England’s streets and 99% of retail sites are stained with gum.

Allison Ogden-Newton OBE, Keep Britain Tidy’s Chief Executive, said: “While chewing gum litter remains a stubborn eyesore in our public spaces, the good news is that this scheme is already driving major improvements.

“As an environmental charity, we know that every piece of gum dropped irresponsibly damages the environment, taking years to break down naturally, while also leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for costly clean-up operations.

“Everyone in Exeter can play a part in creating cleaner, greener streets for all by binning their gum properly.”