Chewing gum manufacturers are to be asked to help local councils fund the rising cost of cleaning discarded gum from pavements in the Burnham-On-Sea area.
Sedgemoor District Council said this week it spends around £16,000 a year on pavement washing, which includes getting rid of discarded chewing gum in Burnham-On-Sea and Bridgwater.
It is thought that while an average piece of gum costs around 3p to buy, clean-up expenses stand at around 50 times that figure.
Cllr Richard Burden, the council’s portfolio holder for the Environment, told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “Chewing gum is a plague on our pavements. It is a blight which costs councils a fortune to clean up and takes hours of hard work to remove. It’s ugly, it’s unsightly and it’s unacceptable.”
Across the UK chewing gum manufacturers have been urged to help councils cover the multi-million pound cost of cleaning gum from England’s streets.
The Local Government Association (LGA) wants manufacturers to contribute towards the costs of ensuing proper disposal.
The council has appealed to local people to make it their New Year’s resolution to bin their gum, rather than drop in on pavements.
