Council awarded £25k to clean chewing gum up

Ipswich Borough Council has successfully be awarded the grant for another year

A council has been awarded a £25,550 grant to tackle chewing gum litter.

Ipswich Borough Council is one of 54 local authorities in the country that successfully applied to the Chewing Gum Task Force.

The grant was established by Defra and is run by Keep Britain Tidy. It is funded by major gum manufacturers.

Phil Smart, portfolio holder for environment and transport at the council, said the funding would allow for specialist equipment to be bought.

"This funding will allow us to purchase specialist equipment to remove chewing gum as well as implementing behaviour change signage as we endeavour to stop gum being littered in Ipswich," he explained.

"Importantly it will also support our recycling education programme in schools and community groups to show children and young people the impact chewing gum has on our wildlife and our environment, to stop it being dropped in the first place."

The council is only one of eight to have be granted the funding three years in a row.

Research has suggested the clean-up of chewing gum costs councils around £7m and, according to Keep Britain Tidy, around 77% of England's streets have gum on them.

Allison Ogden-Newton, chief executive of the charity, said: "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," she added.