Mid Ulster awarded additional funding to tackle the sticky issue of chewing gum

A third grant from the Chewing Gum Task Force, administered by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, will help Mid Ulster District Council continue to clean up gum and reduce gum littering.

Mid Ulster District Council is continuing to remove the chewing gum that blights local streets after receiving an additional £27,500 grant to tackle the issue.

This funding from the Chewing Gum Task Force, now in its third year, will be used to clean gum off pavements and prevent them from being littered again.

Mid Ulster District Council is one of only three of the 11 councils here to successfully secure the funding for a third year.

Established by Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) 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.

Chair of the Council, Councillor Eugene McConnell is delighted the funding was secured for a third year. He said: "We spend close to £2M on street cleaning every year, with the removal of unsightly chewing gum on our local footpaths and streets contributing to this figure. Therefore, I am delighted that the Council was again successful in its grant application to the task force for a third year in a row bringing the total funding received to £72,500.

“While I wish to remind residents that chewing gum should not be disposed of on the ground in the first place, this additional funding will enable us to continue to clean up the areas of Mid Ulster that have fallen victim to this unpleasant and unnecessary blight."

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 - an area equivalent to the Vatican City.

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.

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.”