Most people have had unpleasant encounters with chewing gum, whether they have had to scrape it off their shoes or cut it out of a child’s hair. Finding gum that someone else has chewed and then dropped on the sidewalk or stuck to the bottom of a bench can be unpleasant for anyone. However, for the crews of city or town employees who have to clean gum off of sidewalks and public benches, it can also be expensive and time-consuming. The governments of large cities, especially, can spend a large amount of time and money on the difficult task of scraping sticky gum off of the many places where careless chewers have left it.
The high cost of discarded gum can be a major issue. As a report on the issue in the Sydney Morning Herald states, the government of Singapore has even banned chewing gum because of the mess it creates, although it allows some people to chew gum for health reasons. However, a new campaign to collect and recycle used gum might help to relieve the situation, at least to some extent. It might even make gum chewing legal in Singapore again.
Anna Bullus and the Beginning of Gum Recycling
Some of the major innovations in ridding the streets of gum have come from scientists working in the United Kingdom. According to an article on gum recycling by Lucy Siegle in the Guardian newspaper, Anna Bullus of Brighton University in England was one of the first people to succeed in finding a way to deal with discarded gum. As the article states, cleaning gum from public places is a major undertaking in the United Kingdom, costing £150 million per year. Scientists concerned about the large amount of money and effort being put into the problem began to look for a creative way to deal with it.
One solution to this problem was to find a way to use the gum and then to begin to collect and recycle it. Working in her lab, Anna Bullus found a way to change the rubber in gum into foam and then into a plastic-like substance which she turned into pink gum bins and distributed around the campus of her university and eventually elsewhere in England. When a bin is full, both it and its contents are recycled to become even more bins where people can leave their used gum.
Companies Involved in Gum Recycling
Discarded chewing gum has been a problem in many areas of the world. According to the Springwise ecology web page, the British Gummy Bins is one of the main companies to recycle gum, while Envyrobubble is its counterpart in Canada. Envyrobubble’s bins can hold up to one thousand pieces of gum, while Gummy Bins come in two sizes, one holding 250 pieces and the other 500. Instead of being turned into more plastic, Envyrobubble’s gum eventually becomes fertilizer, while Gummy Bins’ gum might eventually become part of running tracks or drainage pipes. Eventually, recycled gum might be present in almost everything containing rubber.
Discarded chewing gum might seem like a minor issue compared with the many other environmental problems people face. However, getting gum out of public places could have a positive long-term effect as people become aware of how even the smallest thing can make a difference. It could even inspire them to find creative solutions for the many other problems cities and towns are facing.
Sources:
Siegle, Lucy. "Anna Bullus's Innovation: Chewing Gum Recycling." The Guardian.
Springwise.com. "Gum Recycling Bins."
Sydney Morning Herald. "Singapore Sticks to Ban on Chewing Gum."
Susan Huebert - My name is Susan Huebert, and I'm a writer and editor from Winnipeg, Manitoba. I've always enjoyed words, and I graduated with a Bachelor ...
