And to help to remove this waste from our public areas, the council has been given a grant of £27,045 from the Chewing Gum Task Force to clean gum off pavements as part of South Lanarkshire’s It’s Your Place campaign.

The council is one of 54 across the country that have successfully applied to the third annual round of grants from the task force which is administered by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy.

The grants are funded by major gum manufacturers including Mars Wrigley and Perfetti Van Melle, with an investment of up to £10 million spread over five years.

Councillor Robert Brown, the chair of the council’s Community and Enterprise Resources Committee, said: “Getting this external funding for a third-year running will allow now be used specifically to target thoughtlessly discarded chewing gum from our streets and open spaces.

“This removal work will complement our ongoing It’s Your Place campaign to tackle litter and other anti-social behaviour that unfortunately wastes a lot of time and money the council could be using in a far more constructive way.

“The funding will also allow us to target behaviour through ‘bin your gum’ stickers on street bins in the worst affected areas.”

Monitoring and evaluation carried out by Behaviour Change has shown that in areas that benefitted last year a reduced rate of gum littering is still being observed six months after clean-up and the installation of prevention materials.

By combining targeted street cleaning with specially designed signage, reductions in gum littering of up to 60% was achieved in the first two months.

Allison Ogden-Newton OBE, Keep Britain Tidy’s chief executive, said: “Chewing gum litter is highly visible on our high streets and is both difficult and expensive to clean up, so the support for councils provided by the Chewing Gum Task Force and the gum manufacturers is very welcome.”