Shops urged to stop selling gum

By Seamus Boyd
BBC News

"They don't sow potatoes nor barley nor wheat but there's gangs of them chewing like dogs in the street."

180,000 pieces of gum were removed from Dublin's Grafton Street

Ok, so that's not exactly what Percy French said as he viewed London and thought with tear-filled eyes about his beloved Newcastle in County Down, but if he returned today he'd find that like many Irish towns, it's blighted by the menace of chewing gum.

Thousands of pounds has been spent creating new paved areas in the town and Down District Council is fearful that soon they will be besmirched.

Sharon O'Connor, the council's director of cultural and economic development - a title which in itself is a mouthful - now wants Newcastle's shops to stop selling gum.

"We were discussing how to make an impact on the chewing gum problem in Newcastle, and this is what we have come up with," she said.

"Dirt you can wash away, but cleaning gum provides a much greater problem. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who would think nothing of just spitting it out,'' she told the Mourne Observer newspaper.

"Chewing gum is not an essential part of anybody's life and we are trying to be innovative here and to encourage people to be responsible,'' she said.

Biodegradable gum

One local trader said a ban on selling gum was unrealistic.

"How do you stop people coming into the town from other areas and throwing their gum on the ground? You can't do anything about that unfortunately. Perhaps the best thing would be to impose a tax,'' he said.

A fortune is spent across Britain and Ireland in removing chewing gum from pavements, with the annual clean-up figure for the UK now topping £150m.

The annual clean-up figure for the UK now tops £150m

Dublin's no better. In one month alone, 180,000 pieces of gum were removed from the city's Grafton Street.

The cleaners there might one day thank scientists in University College Cork who are working on a biodegradable gum which could be digested like bread or simply worn away by the elements.

One thing's certain, the gum chewing habit is ingrained in our lifestyles and it's not just a recent phenomenon.

One website reports that in 1993 three well-chewed wads of 9,000 year-old honey-sweetened birch resin was found on the Swedish island of Orust.

Dental experts said the imprints on the gum suggested barely worn teeth that could only have belonged to a teenager. The more things change.