A n d r e w s G u m W o r l d

IMAGE: oleole.com.

A Brazilian futebol/soccer player, José da Silva Aloísio, discovered the threatening drawbacks of chewing gum and running into fellow players. As The New York Times reported last week:

Aloisio, a striker for Vasco da Gama, wound up in the hospital after colliding with an opponent and choking on his gum during a second-division game Tuesday. He was released from the hospital and avoided serious injury.

While Aloísio doesn’t remember much of the injury — after which he stopped breathing momentarily — the accident has inspired a new approach for the mingling of futebol and chiclete:

“I don’t remember a lot,” Aloisio told local media Wednesday. “I only remember the doctor taking the gum out. I have never been scared like this — no more chewing gum for me.”

No Chewing Gum Today, originally uploaded by Mediachaos.

Wall of gum, originally uploaded by Mr. Bowman.

You can see a much smaller version of this photograph below as part of the post about the mixing of metaphors when financial experts talk  about the current “chewing gum” rally that’s currently driving the stock market.

 However, it’s also a great photo on its own, and it features a wall in Seattle outside one of the improv theatres there, Unexpected Productions, and it deserves to be featured on its own (and, if you click through to Flickr, you’ll see some Notes highlighted on the pic from Mr. Bowman, who posted the original shot).

walking on bubble gum, originally uploaded by camil tulcan.

PHOTO: Chicza Gum

If you’ve perused the post below, you may have noticed a short reference to an organic and biodegradable gum now available in stores in the UK. We, in turn, got curious and checked out the web to find out more, and found, among other things, a great podcast on the site Make Wealth History (you can listen to the podcast by clicking on the link at the end of this post), which includes the following details on this new gum from Mexico, Chicza:

It’s a great example of sustainable business, creating jobs in Mexico, stewarding the rainforests, and helping to solve the problem of urban staining here in the UK.

Chicza went on sale this week. Louise has been along to London’s Trafalgar Square to meet the directors and do a taste test, in this exclusive report for Make Wealth History.

We also checked out the website for Chicza which talked about how their approach to gum has provided a great, environmentally friendly resolution by creating a biodegradable chewing gum:

Currently, most mass-produced chewing gums use artificial, petrol-based polymers as substitutes for natural chicle. Even those few, very fine chewing gums that still have natural chicle use only small amounts of it and combine it with synthetic gums. That is why chewing gum is such an environmental and sanitary threat to cities all over the world: the polymers in gum bind very successfully with asphalt.

Chicza has nothing but natural, organic gum base, and therefore has all the virtuous features of this innocuous, hydrosoluble, non-sticky, biodegradable source. Easily decomposed by weathering, combined with bacterial and enzymatic biodegradation, it turns to dust and goes back to the soil, just like rotting wood, fallen leaves and other organic material.

Check out the Chicza website for more details on this new type of gum.

Podcast courtesy of makewealthhistory.org. Click here.

 
PHOTO:  Dumfries Civic Pride

Our friends (you can see some of them above) who make up the Dumfries Civic Pride group are, according to their website:

a group of Doonhamers who are proud of Dumfries, the historic town that gave rise to the names Bruce, Burns and Barrie.
We give up our spare time to make sure that you can be also be proud of your town.

We do this, in association with the Dumfries and Galloway Council, by promoting a well cared for environment, which provides businesses, tourists with the right message.

Our work includes:

…Clean-ups - Undertake litter and graffiti removal.

The latter goal that this group has set for itself has led to an audacious suggestion made earlier this week in the Dumfries and Galloway Standard, and that is to ban gum altogether from the UK, much as Singapore has done. As their frustrations increase in cleaning the town centre from discarded gum (yes, ’tis the season for AndrewsGumWorld stories on gum removal in the UK) has led them to write to their MPs to encourage them to take what the group sees as a necessary step.

In the article, group member Morris Service (a most excellent name for a group of this sort) explained the reasons behind their call for the criminalisation of the dropping of chewing gum to The Standard:

“The majority dispose of chewing gum responsibly but there were still those who left their discarded gum on the street, benches or on the back of seats on public transport.”He added: “While this seems a far reaching proposal, it comes with an increasing frustration at the impossible task of cleaning the sheer amount of chewing gum accumulating on our streets and pavements.

“Despite the efforts of Dumfries and Galloway Council employing contractors to remove chewing gum from parts of Dumfries town centre, at considerable expense, the problem has only been temporarily dealt with.”

The council has spent more than £1million on a major repaving project of Friars Vennel in Dumfries, which according to Mr Service is becoming littered with gum already.

In the same piece, a local MP, Russell Brown agreed with the challenges highlighted by the group, and called for local stores to carry biodegradable gum, recently introduced in England:

“I know gum stained pavements in Dumfries are a massive source of frustration for proud Doonhamers. But equally I know it is only the small minority who have no respect who throw their gum on the floor for someone else to come along and unknowingly tread it into the pavement.

“Last month an organic, biodegradable gum hit the shelves of supermarkets in the UK. So an alternative to banning gum – which could be difficult to enforce – could be to encourage local retailers to stock this natural substitute which does not stick to clothing or pavements.”

 
slo 011, originally uploaded by riley lassner.

Chewing Gums, originally uploaded by hkdigit.

IMAGES: Chewing Gum Action Group

While our friends in the Chewing Gum Action Group in Britain are gearing up for the 2009 campaign, we thought we might include a couple of their gum wraps/posters from last year’s campaign that are part of the group’s most creative and ongoing efforts to address the challenges of discarded gum throughout the villages and on the streets of the UK (we’ve reported on their efforts elsewhere in this blog).

As their site notes, the group was established with the following goals:

The Chewing Gum Action Group (CGAG) is a joint initiative for local authorities aiming to change the behaviour of gum-droppers through local campaigns.

This website introduces CGAG and explains how we are making this behaviour change happen, as well as giving you the opportunity to get involved with the campaign.

You can see more of their campaigns and read about their worthy efforts, including some of their initial plans for the 2009 campaign by clicking here.

PHOTO: Trevor Ashby, Barnoldswick

Yesterday’s The Citizen, from Burnley, UK, reported that the Pendle Borough Council has spent 450.2 hours removing gum from streets in Nelson, Colne, Brierfield, Barnoldswick (you can see one of the bus shelters that been the object of cleaning efforts in Barnoldswick, part of a nice page of photos of the town by Trevor Ashby), Barrowford and Earby.

The article noted that a request through the Freedom of Information Act showed that the Council’s efforts since May 2006 have represented nearly three months of work to remove gum from the streets and town centres of the villages listed above.

John David, leader of the Borough Council, suggests that the effort is worth it, but also frustrating given the time, money and prevalence of available litter bins and the £75 [US$110] fine for disposing of gum on the streets:

Councillor John David, leader of Pendle Council, said: “We do have a problem with gum in Pendle and we take a lot of time and effort scraping it off our pavements.

“No-one wants to get gum on their shoes and it looks a mess on our pavements too.

“People need to remember that gum counts as litter.

“They risk having to pay a £75 fine for dropping it.

“What they need to do is use a litter bin – and we provide plenty of those.”