Back in April we ran a piece about Gumdrop, the recycling company that’s doing great things with discarded chewing gum.

Reclaimed gum is processed to create a material called Gum-Tech, which can be used to produce anything from rulers, lunch boxes and spoons to takeaway coffee mugs and Wellington boots! It helps to keep our streets cleaner too.

The chewing gum menace on Britain’s pavements is understandably getting councils hot under the collar. ‘Chewing gum is a plague on our pavements,’ says Local Government Association (LGA) spokesman, councillor Peter Box in a recent article at Express. ‘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.’

The LGA, which represents around 400 councils in England and Wales, reckons an average piece of chewing gum costs about 3p to buy but around £1.50 to clean up. Not surprisingly the problem is worse in towns and cities. Westminster Council says almost three million pieces are dropped on the streets of London’s West End in one year alone.

Gumdrop is currently busy in an innovative partnership with Kensington and Chelsea Council in a campaign aimed at reducing gum litter on Kensington High Street.

Until 18 December (the initiative began at the end of October) the Gumdrop people will be handing out a neat disposable keying – Gumdrop On-the-go – a mini Gumdrop that makes recycling chewing gum easier than ever. Not only does it house waste gum but it is also made out of recycled gum itself.

‘Here at Gumdrop we want to change the way people think of chewing gum disposal,’ says Gumdrop founder, Anna Bullus. ‘Gumdrop On-the-go can be carried around and used for personal chewing gum disposal. We want everyone who chews gum to have one, making it easy for everyone to give gum a second life no matter where they are in the world.’

When full, the Gumdrops On-the-go can be sent back via free post to Gumdrop for recycling. As a thank you for returning a full Gumdrop On-the-go, the company will send out a surprise Gum-Tech gift.

We don’t think we need labour the point that Gumdrops On-the-go make brilliant personalised promotional products, so we won’t. Suffice to say that we love the way these little gizmos are doing their bit to help our environment!

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Jason Markwick

Having worked in Promotional Merchandise for the last 25 years I have been exposed to all aspects of the industry. Starting out as an account manager working with some of the worlds leading brands, I have learnt to understand the needs of a client, manufacturing processes, and what it takes to deliver a successful promotional campaign that is on brand, on time and within a given budget.