Closed petition Force the chewing gum industry to pay for gum clean up costs - not the taxpayer

Closed on 17 July 2018

Local councils/taxpayers waste over £1million A WEEK to scrape chewing gum off our streets. The government must hold billionaire gum producers accountable for the huge costs their products inflict, and legally force them to pay for the clean up costs. Currently, they pay nothing towards these costs.

Local councils have faced 32% cuts in their budgets since 2010. It's estimated that 2,000,000 blotches of gum are dropped on pavements every week in the UK, costing £1.50 to remove each black/white coloured blotch of gum.

A gum tax needs to be imposed on the sector to help offset the unsustainable and obscene costs that local Councils are currently having to bear - and which diverts scarce funding away from social care, housing and other essential local services.