Derry public urged to 'think twice' as chewing gum clean-up completed

Derry City and Strabane District Council has completed a special chewing gum cleaning project after receiving funding to tackle the issue on Derry and Strabane’s streets.

DCSDC has been working to clean up gum and reduce people littering their gum with help from a Chewing Gum Task Force grant, administered by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy.

Council successfully completed its work to remove the chewing gum blighting local streets after receiving a £27,500 grant to tackle the issue earlier this year.

Now in its fourth year, Derry City and Strabane District Council is one of 52 councils across the country that successfully applied to the Chewing Gum Task Force. Among the activities carried out by cleansing teams over the past few months are cleansing pavements and walkways as well as placing signage on the areas where cleaning has taken 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.

John Quinn, Streetscape Manager at Derry City and Strabane District Council, said he was delighted their teams have completed such important improvements across the city and district and encouraged the public to think twice before throwing their gum on the ground.

“Chewing gum continues to pose a challenge as a stubborn and visually unappealing form of waste in our Council area. While the scheme is successfully reducing occurrences, public cooperation remains essential and we need to get the message out there. Improper disposal not only causes long-term environmental damage due to its slow decomposition but also results in significant public cleaning costs. We need to encourage people to dispose of their chewing gum properly and use the bins provided.”

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 task force was established by DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and is currently run by environmental charity, Keep Britain Tidy.

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A spokesperson for Keep Britain Tidy 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.”

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.

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 the clean-up and installation of prevention materials.

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.