Published on:
21
February 2013
A new state of the art gum busting machine is the latest weapon being used in the Council's battle to clean-up the county's streets.
The £7000 machine is a first for the Council's Environmental Services who have tried a number of unsuccessful methods to blast the eyesore from the county's town centre pavements.
But this new piece of equipment, which uses a combination of a wire brush and detergent, is doing the trick.
Councillor Donald Balsillie, Convener of the Enterprise and Environment Committee, said: "I know that residents and local businesses find discarded chewing gum a real eyesore and I am delighted to learn that an effective method of removing it from our town centre pavements has been found.
"The amount of chewing gum discarded and disfiguring our streets is a disgrace. I don't think it's too much to ask people to dispose of their gum properly in a litter bin. We recently introduced £50 fines for people dropping litter, including chewing gum, so this is the next stage of our ongoing battle to improve the appearance of our community as well as remove the nuisance it causes."
In the UK, 20 million people consume more than 935 million packs of gum a year, and many chewers are dropping or spitting their discarded gum on the streets. The cost of cleaning gum pollution from the nation's streets is more than £150 million a year.
Councillor Balsillie added: "We must convince people that it is socially unacceptable to discard gum in the street. We'd much rather be spending this money on other things but so long as people continue to deface our town centres and create a nuisance for others, the Council has a responsibility to clean up after them. Our Community Warden's will hot hesitate in imposing fines on anyone seen dropping chewing gum or any litter"
"We have tested other machines in the past, none of which have been effective, howeverthis equipment is being successfully used by a number of other Councils, and does remove gum. We believe it can also remove graffiti and bill posters, which will ensure Clackmannanshire's streets are as clean as possible."
The Gumpak system is lightweight and totally portable, consisting of a high visibility backpack and a carbon fibre lance with built in vaporiser.
The backpack contains a small LPG canister, a bottle of Gumpak cleaning solution, a rechargeable battery and a clever little pump. The battery powers the pump which injects cleaning fluid into the lance at a constant rate of three milliletres per second. The gas powers the heating unit built into the lightweight lance.
The carbon fibre lance contains a self contained heating unit which vaporises the cleaning chemical at source delivering the ideal amount of steam and detergent to the interchangeable brass brush for optimal gum removal in around three seconds.
The Gumpak detergent is a totally natural and environmentally friendly.
Councillor Balsillie added: "The alternatives for gum removal would be high pressure washing which wastes massive volumes of water and energy requiring the use of large, noisy generators to power the washer with a high risk of surface damage. Gumpak appears a much more efficient and environmentally friendly way forward."