Thousands of pieces of chewing gum have been removed from Aberdeen’s Union Street in a drive to keep the city’s main thoroughfare clean of rubbish.
Aberdeen City Council received a grant of £27,500 from the ‘Chewing Gum Task Force’, which allowed the local authority to double down on efforts to cleanse the street and put up signage aimed at preventing littering.
Funded by gum manufacturers Mars Wrigley and Perfetti Van Melle, the scheme looks to invest £10m across five years. So far, 52 local authorities across the UK have received funding, which is administered by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy.
Aberdeen City Council Co-Leader Councillor Ian Yuill said: “This additional action to remove chewing gum really helps with the shared aim of improving the city centre. The area should be pleasant and attractive for the benefit of all businesses, visitors and residents.
“The £27,500 grant from the Chewing Gum Task Force is a welcome boost to enable more cleaning and to introduce signage aimed at preventing the unacceptable practice of discarding chewing gum. The collective work is important and will hopefully be able to make a lasting difference."
Councillor Miranda Radley added: “The council’s cleansing team work hard keeping Union Street free of litter.
“We’d ask people as always not to drop litter, including chewing gum, as it is unsightly and its removal takes time and money.”
Allison Ogden-Newton OBE, Chief Executive of Keep Britain Tidy, noted: “Chewing gum continues to be an unsightly form of litter in our public spaces – though thankfully the scheme is leading to significant reductions.
People need to remember that disposing irresponsibly of their gum causes harm to our environment as it takes years to decompose naturally – and, ultimately, costs the public purse to clean it up.”
A previous round of cleaning removed thousands of pieces of gum from Aberdeen city centre in December 2024.
