The grant of £27,058 from the Chewing Gum Task Force has been used over the last few months to target some of the worst areas affected by chewing gum thoughtlessly discarded as part of South Lanarkshire’s It’s Your Place campaign.

Over the past few months the clean-up team have used four specialist chewing gum removal machines which run entirely on rechargeable batteries and use heated natural pH-neutral detergents to remove the gum.

And to back up the removal of the gum, the council has also put up signage provided by the task force to encourage people to bin their gum and reduce the need for the clean-up operation in the future.

Councillor Robert Brown, the chair of the council’s Community and Enterprise Resources Committee, said: “As part of the council’s ongoing It’s Your Place campaign, removing chewing gum is just one of many activities we are taking on to tackle litter and other anti-social behaviours.

“The funding also allowed us to target behaviour through special ‘bin your gum’ stickers that were placed prominently on street bins in the worst affected areas.”

The council is one of 52 across the country that have successfully applied to the fourth annual round of grants administered by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy and funded by major gum manufacturers including Mars Wrigley and Perfetti Van Melle.

A spokesperson for Keep Britain Tidy said: “Chewing gum continues to be an unsightly form of litter in our public spaces – though thankfully the scheme is leading to significant reductions.

“People need to remember that disposing irresponsibly of their gum causes harm to our environment as it takes years to decompose naturally – and, ultimately, costs the public purse to clean it up.”

Monitoring and evaluation carried out by Behaviour Change – a not-for-profit social enterprise - has shown a reduced rate of gum littering six months after the clean-up and prevention signage materials were put up in the areas affected.