Chewing gum is disgusting. Two days running, the underside of my flipflop has acquired the masticated detritus of some loser’s mouthful of non-nutritional goo. Today my foot glued itself to the carpet of the train, and left a stretch of elasticated food additives behind after each step, as I tried to escape it.
What is the bloody point of this revolting stuff? Constant rumination makes you look bovine, not sophisticated. Vile, absolutely vile.
June 27, 2005
Gobshite
I much prefer mints myself.
“constant rumination makes you look bovine, not sophisticated.”
if the singapore government had you as a copywrighter ten years ago they might not’ve had to resort to tyrannical banning to get rid of chewing gum..!
I absolutely advocate an all-out ban.
(chewing as i type)
the problem lies with the binning, or lack of it, surely.
Ooh, you should meet a friend of mine whose top rant is the disgustingness of people chewing gum with their mouth open. Other than the occasional bit of nicotine gum, which isn’t chewed anyway, I can’t remember the last time I had some. But there’s an actual team of street cleaners in my borough called ‘Gumbusters’ and I heard that the costs of removing gum comes to six figures in one geographically small London borough alone.
Yes, I heard of a similar figure for clearing gum off the streets of Slough. Although arguably, a layer of gum improves Slough.
They should make the cost of gum reflect the cost of clearing it up by a levy or something on the industry… that way, people would buy less or something cheaper (like mints) if chewing seems absolutely imperative.
I think reflecting cleaning/refuse costs is a good idea generally. A similar thing for food packaging with a levy for excessive waste would soon cut down on landfill (and council tax bills)
Sgumbags(TM) are the answer. All habitual chewers should carry a Sgumbag into which they should deposit their gum, post chewing. At the end of the day, just toss the Sgumbag into a bin.
Or you could try sticking the gum straight onto a celebrity’s face.
I prefer holey Polos myself.
Polly: the downside to increasing the cost of chewing gum to take into account the cost of cleaning the pavement would only really make a difference of a few pence per packet – not enough to deter people from buying. What’s more, people would take the attitude that since they have already effectively paid for the cleaning procedure by paying the tax, they would be even less inclined to dispose of it carefully.
One of my first “Saturday jobs” included scraping* the gum off the floors of a department store.
So I’m very with you on this one.
* This was in pre-rubber glove days, too.
*chomp chomp chomp*
Polos rot your teeth like no-bodies-business so I switched to sugar free gum. It’s also a good way to keep me from eating.
But then I don’t spit it out onto the pavement, preferring to use those handy containers that most councils provide… what they called again.. oh yes, BINS!
So, how about more EDUCATION for the inconsiderates amongst us, rather than penalising the people who like gum and dispose of it responsibly (but then you could say the same of smokers…)
More education?… hmmm… I suppose that a “less academic” degree of this nature would fit nicely with the Government’s target of getting 50+% of school-leavers into further education.
The containers are handy, Gordon, I agree. Well, unless you’re in a train station, in which case good bloody luck. But that’s a rant for another day.
As for “Gumbusters” and the like, one thing they found in Manchester was that the pressure hoses uses also cleaned the dirt/pollution/grime off the paving slabs, so it looked like giant snails had been going past all night. Very odd. And utterly vile.
I’m with Singapore – the stuff should be outright banned.