More than 50 councils across the UK are to share grants totalling more than £1.2 million to remove discarded chewing gum from UK streets and prevent them from being littered again.
Antrim and Newtownabbey, Cardiff, Glasgow, Ipswich, Liverpool, Sunderland and Wiltshire are among those to benefit from the second round of funding from the Chewing Gum Task Force.
Launched in 2021, the Task Force was established by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and is administered by charity Keep Britain Tidy, with funding provided by gum producers. It aims to clean gum off pavements and put in measures to stop it being dropped in the first place, helping clamp down on anti-social littering.
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.
The Chewing Gum Task Force brings together some of the country’s major chewing gum producers, including Mars Wrigley and Perfetti Van Melle. Together, the producers have pledged up to £10 million over five years via the scheme to tackle gum littering.
The latest round of funding includes:
o Grants of up to £25,000 for cleansing with a fully funded bespoke gum litter prevention package, and
o Further grants of up to £25,000 for Antrim and Newtownabbey, Cardiff, Doncaster and Glasgow for the fully funded bespoke gum litter prevention package and long-term monitoring and evaluation carried out by not-for-profit social enterprise Behaviour Change.
The full list of councils to receive funding is:
- Newark and Sherwood
- North Tyneside Council
- London Borough of Hackney
- Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council
- Sevenoaks District Council
- Rushcliffe Borough Council
- London Borough of Waltham Forest
- East Cambridgeshire District Council
- Liverpool City Council
- Manchester City Council
- North Devon Council
- Sunderland City Council
- Leeds City Council
- Braintree District Council
- London Borough of Newham
- Tewkesbury Borough Council
- Canterbury City Council
- Southend-on-Sea City Council
- Stoke-on-Trent City Council
- Colchester City Council
- Blackpool Council
- Haringey Council
- City of London Corporation
- Ipswich Borough Council
- City of Doncaster Council
- Redbridge Council
- Cumberland Council
- Middlesbrough Council
- Lewes District Council
- Newcastle City Council
- Pendle Borough Council
- Milton Keynes City Council
- Wiltshire Council
- Wirral Borough Council
- Oxford City Council
- London Borough of Lambeth
- Ealing Council
- Warrington
- Wigan Council
- Cardiff Council
- Newport City Council
- Cyngor Gwynedd
- Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council
- Bridgend County Borough Council
- Rhondda Cynon Taff County Borough Council
- Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council
- Vale of Glamorgan Council
- Mid and East Antrim Borough Council
- Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council
- Fermanagh and Omagh District Council
- Derry City and Strabane District Council
- Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council
- Mid Ulster District Council
- South Lanarkshire Council
- South Ayrshire Council, and
- Glasgow City Council.
The full Press Release can be found on GOV.UK.
