Chewing Gum Task Force funds deep clean in Cobham and Esher High Streets

A grant of just over £9,000 from the Chewing Gum Task Force, administered by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, will help us to clean up gum and reduce gum littering across three popular shopping areas next month. 

In Cobham, gum will be removed from both the High Street and Oakdene Parade over a period of around four days. After that, Esher High Street will also be cleansed, again this is likely to take around four days to complete. The exact sequence of the cleansing may need to change for operational reasons, however the overall area that will benefit from the gum cleaning is larger than originally planned.

Over 50 organisations across the country have successfully applied to the Chewing Gum Task Force, now in its fourth year, for funds to clean gum off pavements and prevent them from being littered again.

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 and second year of funding, a reduced rate of gum littering of up to 80% was seen in the first two months, with reductions still being observed six months after targeted street cleansing and the installation of specially designed signage to encourage people to bin their gum.

Councillor Ashley Tilling, Portfolio Holder for Climate Change, Environmental Services and Sustainability, said:

I am pleased that this year’s grant funding will be used to give three key areas in Elmbridge a thorough deep-clean, restoring their attractiveness for residents and local businesses, and providing a boost to the Keep Elmbridge Tidy campaign. Last year, the funding was used to deep-clean The Parade in Claygate and Walton Road in Molesey; both areas saw a significant improvement in the appearance of the pavements, making visits to shops and businesses more enjoyable.

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 third year the Task Force awarded 54 councils grants worth a total of £1.585 million, helping clean an estimated 500,000m2 of pavements.

Allison Ogden-Newton OBE, Keep Britain Tidy’s chief executive, 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.”