Rochdale Borough Council has been awarded a grant from the Chewing Gum Task Force, administered by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, to help clean up gum and reduce gum littering.
Today, the council announced plans to step up the removal of the chewing gum on the streets that blights Rochdale town centre after receiving a grant of £27,461 to tackle the issue.
Rochdale is now one of 50 councils across the country that have 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 was established by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in 2021, and is run by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy. The scheme aims to combat the littering of gum on the streets of the UK given the impact environmentally and economically. According to Keep Britain Tidy, UK councils spend around £7m annually on cleaning up gum from the streets, with their data also saying that around 77% of England's streets and 99% of retail sites are stained with gum. This imposes a cost on the council, and therefore the taxpayer, hence why the scheme was created.
The 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 it from being dropped onto the streets in the first place.
The Task Force is funded by major gum manufacturers including Mars Wrigley and Perfetti Van Melle, with an investment up to £10m spread over five years.
In the past four years, the Task Force has awarded grants worth a total of £6.46m, this funding the cleaning of over 4.15 million square meters 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, gum littering saw a reduced rate of up to 86% 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, rather than litter on the floor.
Councillor Tricia Ayrton, deputy leader of the council and cabinet member for climate change and environment, said: “This is fantastic news. Chewing gum is difficult and costly to remove and has a lasting impact on our streets and environment. This grant will fund specialist equipment to remove gum more effectively by vaporising it so it can be easily brushed away. It will be trialled in Rochdale town centre as part of our work to keep pavements clean and create a positive impression for residents and visitors.
“While this equipment will help, prevention remains the best solution. Please dispose of gum responsibly, as anyone caught dropping it will face a Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN).”
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 Rochdale can play a part in creating cleaner, greener streets for all by binning their gum properly.”
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