Gumption

Most of us at some point or other have felt that strange sticky sensation when a discarded piece of chewing gum finds its way onto the sole of a shoe.  Yuk!  But if a Ms Anna Bullus has anything to do with it, we may all soon find ourselves walking on old chewing gum each time we hit the streets.  Not because the British designer likes to spit out gum onto the pavement, but because she is a woman on a mission to recycle old gum into useful objects, such as shoes.  According to Ms Bullus, gum contains a synthetic rubber similar to plastic. “It’s called polyisobutylene,” explains Ms Bullus, “the same stuff you find in the inner tube of bicycle wheels.”  Recognising the value of old gum, Ms Bullus set out to get her hands on lots of the sticky stuff, so she created Gumdrop, bright pink, bubble-shaped bins made out of recycled chewing gum and specifically designed for disposing of gum.  Once full, the bins are taken to a recycling plant in Worcester where after unwanted material such as paper is filtered out, the gum is ground into pieces before other recycled plastic polymers are added.  The mixture is then taken to a plastic moulding specialist in Leicester called Amber Valley where after being heated up it is injected into moulds and transformed into Ms Bullus’ designer objects, all of which contain a minimum of 20% chewing gum. “There’s no difference [from] the equivalent polypropylene material that it’s based against, the processing temperatures and parameters are all identical,” says Brett Nixon, a manager at the plant. “When you are handling the finished product, you do take a while to adjust to the fact that this has been in somebody’s mouth previously.  But once you get over that fear it’s easy.  By recycling it and giving it another lease of life it’s helping the environment, it’s an absolutely fantastic idea.”  Mr Nixon is not alone.  The University of Winchester has agreed to install 11 of Ms Bullus’ bins on its campus.  After just 18 months, the university has noticed a drop in gum litter and is planning to expand the scheme.  Meanwhile, a three month trial at Heathrow airport resulted in a “noticeable improvement” and saved £6,000 in cleaning costs, while Great Western Railway has noticed a change in behaviour after it installed the bins in more than 25 of its railway stations.  Ms Bullus’ project has even been given the thumbs up from Wrigley.  The leading gum manufacturer has agreed to provide her with surplus material from its factory in Plymouth.  Alex Hunter-Dunn, a spokesman for Wrigley, said, “Gumdrop is a really creative and innovative way to get people responsibly disposing of their gum and binning it.  We fundamentally believe that behaviour change is the only long-term sustainable solution to tackle the issue and we are very much behind that.”  Now that is something to chew on…