A grant from the Chewing Gum Task Force, administered by the environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, will support Surrey Heath Borough Council cleaning up discarded chewing gum and reducing gum littering in the borough in partnership with our waste collection, recycling and street cleaning contractor, Joint Waste Solutions.
Joint Waste Solutions has received grant funding of just over £7,000 to tackle the issue in Frimley, Bagshot, Heatherside Arcade and the Old Dean Parade.
Councillor Morgan Rise, Net Zero, Environment & Leisure Portfolio Holder, Surrey Heath Borough Council said;
“I am delighted this grant funding from Keep Britain Tidy and the Chewing Gum Taskforce and gum manufacturers has been secured for Surrey Heath. It’s important to keep our streets clean so that residents and local businesses can take pride in their local area and enjoy their surroundings.
The signage that will be displayed after the street cleansing will help to prevent future littering and keep our streets looking their best.”
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.”
Joint Waste Solutions is one of 54 organisations 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 the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) 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.
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.
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.