Ealing council in London has launched a campaign aimed at preventing people from throwing their chewing gums in the street.
The council is using boards called GumTargets. The boards offer the public a choice of celebrity faces to stick their chewing gum on. The famous faces being used in the GumTargets include Sven Goran Erickson, Jordan and Kermit the Frog.
The GumTargets have removable sheets, that are changed six days a week.
Roni White, Ealing Council's says "Gum is a particularly difficult form of litter to get rid of as it is expensive to remove and soon builds up again. Spitting gum is anti-social and everybody hates it getting it stuck on their shoes. We want this campaign to start changing people's behaviour and encourage them to think about better ways of disposing of chewing gum."
The council hopes the campaign will be as successful as those in other areas, including Luton and Bournemouth where the GumTarget™Initiative has already been well accepted by the public and demonstrated tangible results.
It's estimated local councils throughout the UK spend £150m (225 million Euro) a year to tackle the problem. Often six months after a specialist removal method the problem has returned to its former state. Cleaning up gum by high-pressure jet washes can also damage paving stones and weaken the grout.
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