If you combined discarded chewing gum and cigarette butts, you would have the two of the largest contributors to littered items across the world. They each have a significant impacts on local government litter programs.

• Chewing gum, it’s tough to remove, and there is a legacy of old chewing gum.
• Cigarette butts for the sheer number and spread of locations where people smoke and litter.

This posting is focused specifically on chewing gum, some quick observations, cleaning activities, the disposal process and actions as well as helping you understand gum litter accumulation rates.

“A simple way to look at chewing gum litter is that it is commonly disposed of at or near points where people have conversations, where people consume food and drink’s and where public systems transport people.”

A very quick way to learn a little about chewing gum litter is to look into these five suggestions, these locations and knowledge will educate you pretty quickly;

1. Proximity of gum to bins

2. Gum litter near licensed premises

3. Gum litter near public transport sites

4. Business that attract gum chewers

5. Your council’s gum removal techniques

 

 

The Proximity of gum litter to bins – 

This is a simple observation; you will likely find more chewing gum litter around bins than at other places along regular footpaths. You will find the highest density of gum litter within one metre of the base of the bin. Most gum chewers are at least attempt to do the right thing; it’s just that final disposal action that they get wrong.

 

 

 

Gum litter near licensed premises – 

You will notice that chewing gum litter is more intense the closer you get to licensed venues. The location where people have to wait in line before entering a bar or club can have matching lines of chewing gum litter built up over weeks, months and years. These types of locations are a significant issue but also a very manageable one.

 

Gum litter near public transport – 

The numbers of pedestrians in and out of public transportation sites lead to a little higher than standard rates of littering. When you spend some time analysing these locations you should notice that the litter nearby is usually small in size. Understanding pedestrian movements and knowing about the entry and exit points to public transport sites makes managing chewing gum litter nearby quite achievable.

 

 

 

Businesses that attract gum chewers – We’ve already touched on licensed premises and transport hubs, other businesses that attract gum chewers are those that predominately cater to unaccompanied young people. (15 – 30 years) Amusement centres, cinemas and upmarket sportswear outlets are good examples.  Accumulation rates for these types of premises are impacted by seasonal holidays more significantly than other site types.

Your council’s gum removal techniques – 

Develop an understanding of what techniques and strategies your organisation adopt to manage and remove chewing gum litter. It’s also advisable to keep abreast of emerging technologies and techniques that others are utilising with favourable results.

The three best methods for removing chewing gum;

1. Hot water pressure washing, gets the job done
2. GRV/Pacer Gum Removal Vehicle, this machine get’s the job done and act as an education tool at the same time
3. Fresh spot intervention, this requires your cleaners to remove a certain amount of gum during each shift

 

To achieve the best combination of eradicating old gum, staying on top of fresh gum and educating your community and gum chewers a combination of the three techniques works best. Having different methods of removing gum is one thing, reducing the amount of gum littered into the future is key to staying in front of chewing gum litter.

1. Hot water footpath pressure washing

I won’t spend any time explaining how to use pressure washing systems as most councils have professional cleaners or contractors who would be skilled in the art of washing pavements and removing gum with this technique. This approach is best for removing significant levels of old gum along footpaths in high to medium pedestrian density. It’s also usually done out of hours which provides good outcome’s, but there is very little or no educational value.

2. GRV/PACER Gum Removal Vehicles

The GRV/PACER successfully removes gum in public spaces and has the added benefit of high visibility with a bit of a wow factor. It’s a unique concept that attracts a lot of attention from pedestrians and local business, that’s where I see significant value. It’s ideal for bring chewing gum spots and other litter to the attention of your community.

The GRV/PACER is designed to get the job done during business hours or periods of high pedestrian traffic. The onboard steam vapour system uses minimal water and vacuums up the old gum residue. The footpaths are left dry and ready for immediate use. Another feature is the LED screens or static poster display panels, and these can be utilised for anti-litter messages, public notices, council promotion or even corporate sponsorship.

The GRV/Pacer brings a different element to addressing chewing gum litter, then pressure washing or scraping up gum spots; it’s engaging. It is a part of that multi-faceted approach I recommend to most things litter. This one you get to enjoy outcome & engagement.

3. Fresh spot intervention – Accumulation Rates

Understanding the accumulation rate to many types of litter is crucial if you’re looking for ways to more efficiently manage them long term. For a more detailed explanation of litter accumulation, please check out the posting ‘Litter Accumulation – learning from fresh litter’.

To understand chewing gum accumulation, you will need first to create a hierarchy of the streets across the area you want to manage. For example, the main road might be A, a couple of side streets may be a B, and then some streets with random small businesses might be a C. No doubt bigger and busier cities will have more levels in the hierarchy.

These ratings apply only to areas where you have a cleaning capability, remember your ‘sphere of influence’ we discussed in previous postings. Now you simply need to walk a few blocks in each of the category streets and visually audit pieces of chewing gum.

There are two components to footpaths, the pedestrian corridor and the infrastructure corridor. You will only have to inspect the infrastructure corridor as this is where approximately 80% of all litter is located within cities.

Now you count the pieces of fresh gum along the block, that’s only gum that is still fresh, with colour and not compressed flat yet. Capture the data and repeat the exercise across all areas you wish to assess.

You will have to revisit the site’s six times over a two-week period. It might look like this.

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
Week 1	Yes		Yes		Yes
Week 2	Yes		Yes		Yes

 

That’s only three counts per week for a couple of weeks, and you will end up with a spread of data that will even tell you the weekends accumulation rate. Now add all your data together and multiply by twenty-six to get your annual figure. Next, divide that figure by the number of days during the year you will have cleaners available. If you have a monthly schedule for cleaning, you have 12 days available. Cleaners seven days a week is 365 days, day and afternoon shift seven days a week would be 730 days available.

As you are only counting new bits of gum, you will be surprised at how small this accumulation rate usually is. Busy streets in a capital city (outside of entertainment areas) may only accumulate at 20-35 bits of gum per block per week. Which would give you 35 X 2 X 26 = 1820 bits of gum per block annually? Now with a day and afternoon shift cleaner through the area, you would have 1820 / 730 = 2.5 bits of gum per shift. So if your cleaners removed 3 bits of fresh gum each time they walked through that block, you would have managed gum accumulation throughout the year.

If you’ve applied pressure washing or GRV type actions and removed old chewing gum in the area, then this ongoing minor effort by your cleaning staff will help maintain clean and managed footpaths throughout the year.

When you are only thinking about removing three pieces of littered chewing gum in a block you might be looking at 30 –45 seconds work in each block each shift. Now if your cleaners patrol 30 blocks in a shift you would still only be looking at 15 to 22 minutes per shift, that’s manageable.

Too often people assume that staffs are over tasked, under-resourced and simply don’t have the time required to deal with gum litter. If you break litter down and look at accumulation rates, then each task becomes that much more achievable.

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We looked at five observation points earlier to help you understand chewing gum litter. The first point, proximity of gum to bins is one that can be addressed relatively quickly. You are looking for a way to make the disposal process of chewing gum easier; help reduces some of those disposal errors.

 

How about a scenario whereby just improving this ‘ease of disposal’ you can have a significant impact on chewing gum litter at and around bins.

The difficulty with gum disposal is the point when gum  separate’s from fingertips, it is still a little tactile. It’s that bit of stickiness that impacts disposal trajectory, that’s why so much of it ends up on the ground in close proximity to bins.

If you gave a person 10 bits of balled up paper to toss over one metre, more often than not they would land the paper in the bin. The same cannot be said for people with 10 bits of freshly chewed gum. It’s that random last bit of stickiness that creates the variances.

The size of the opening of the bins also has a lot to do with effective disposal, larger unobstructed bin openings have a lot to do with successfully getting the gum into the bin.   Learning from our scenario, large openings that are clean allow people to get closer and for more chewing gum litter to find the bin. Part of that is something that can be factored in at the bin design stage.

 

I encourage readers to apply common sense and your own observations too much of what is written here. Many of these behaviours you will have seen on public transport, in your parks, and on your footpaths.

With these simple observations and the understanding, you gain from them, you and your council will be better positioned to manage and reduce chewing gum litter simply by aligning the right cleaning activities and schedules and installing the right type of bins.

Please feel free to contact me directly at paul@wasteadspace.com.au if you have any questions regarding chewing gum litter. It is one aspect of litter that you can kick some goals with if you approach it correctly.