Extra chewing gum tackled on Union Street

An further hundreds of items of chewing gum have been faraway from Union Street due to a grant administered by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy.

The £27,500 grant, from the Chewing Gum Task Force, contributed in direction of further cleansing and signage aimed toward stopping folks from littering once more – estimates counsel the annual clean-up price of chewing gum for councils within the UK is about £7million.

Aberdeen City Council Co-Leader Councillor Ian Yuill stated: “This additional action to remove chewing gum really helps with the shared aim of improving the city centre. The area should be pleasant and attractive for the benefit of all businesses, visitors and residents.

“The £27,500 grant from the Chewing Gum Task Force is a welcome boost to enable more cleaning and to introduce signage aimed at preventing the unacceptable practice of discarding chewing gum. The collective work is important and will hopefully be able to make a lasting difference.”

Aberdeen City Council Net Zero, Environment and Transport vice convener Councillor Miranda Radley said: “The Council’s cleansing team work hard keeping Union Street free of litter.

“We’d ask people as always not to drop litter, including chewing gum, as it is unsightly and its removal takes time and money.”

Aberdeen City Council was one in every of 52 native authorities throughout the nation which efficiently utilized to the Chewing Gum Task Force, now in its fourth 12 months and funded by main gum producers together with Mars Wrigley and Perfetti Van Melle with an funding of as much as £10million unfold over 5 years.

Allison Ogden-Newton OBE, Chief Executive of Keep Britain Tidy, stated: “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.”

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 throughout the UK who want to clear up gum of their native areas and put money into long-term behaviour change to forestall gum from being dropped within the first place.