page_title: Chewing gum
section_title: Recycling
hierarchical_section_title: Chewing gum / Recycling
caption_attribution_description: Chewing gum collecting bin. Made from recovered polyisobutylene, recycled from chewing gum. See http://gumdropltd.com/ Caldicot, South East Wales
context_page_description: Chewing gum is a soft, cohesive substance designed in order to be chewed without being swallowed. Modern chewing gum is composed of gum base, sweeteners, softeners/plasticizers, flavors, colors, and, typically, a hard or powdered polyol coating. Its texture is reminiscent of rubber because of the physical-chemical properties of its polymer, plasticizer, and resin components, which contribute to its elastic-plastic, sticky, chewy characteristics.
context_section_description: In 2018, the BBC published a news article on British designer Anna Bullus, who created a method of collecting and recycling chewing gum into plastic, noting that litter from chewing gum is the second most common form of litter, second only to cigarette litter. She uses a Worcester recycling plant to make old chewing gum into plastic. She then uses that plastic at a plastic moulding specialist, Amber Valley, in Leicester to make plastic objects. Known objects made are collection containers for more chewing gum, shoe soles, rubber boots, and plastic cups. Her company advertises itself as the "first company in the world to recycle and process chewing gum into a range of new compounds that can be used in the rubber and plastics industry". The company is called Gum-tec, and the collection containers are dubbed "gumdrops". Advertised products on the website are pencils, coffee mugs, guitar picks, a "bicycle spoke", rulers, sports cones, frisbees, boomerangs, door stops, "meal mates", lunch-boxes, and combs.
caption: Gumdrop chewing gum collecting bin
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