Recycling Your Gum
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 07.26.07
Sure, it's nothing ground-breaking or even particularly innovative; given its sheer ease-of-use and practicality, however, should that even really matter? Two companies, Canadian Envyrobubble and British Gummy Bins, have come out with a neat solution to our chronic chewing gum littering situation: little collection bins designed for public spaces that can hold 250 - 1,000 pieces of gum each. While we often tend to focus on the bigger items littering our streets and parks — soda cans, food wrappers, etc — discarded chewing gum can become a serious problem requiring a lot of man-hours and cash to remove.
Envyrobubble's eye-catching stand-alone bins can hold up to 1,000 pieces of gum whereas Gummy Bins' mini-containers — which come in two models, the Gummy Street and the Gummy Club — hold up to 500 and 250 pieces of gum, respectively. Gummy Bins' two models can be attached to walls or street lanterns in public spaces and customized with everything from logos and ads to LCD screens. The gum in Envyrobubble's bins is eventually recycled into fertilizer while Gummy Bins — which has formed a partnership with leading UK recycling company Hippo Waste — recycles its gum into a rubber-like material that can be used for construction purposes.
Now that both companies have decided to open up their business to international distribution deals, you may soon see these colorful bins coming to a street corner near you. We can't think of an easier way to throw away your gum and do good by Mother Earth in the same breath.
Via ::Springwise: Gum recycling bins (news website)
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If folks don't use the public trash bins that already exist for disposing their chewing gum, what makes these companies think that adding a new receptacle will encourage them to use it? I think this idea is just silly and another excuse to clutter up public space with more advertising space.
this is worthy of a mention? the fact is that if people can't use a BIG trash can, why the hell would they use some stupid little box? and, how much energy is spent in the production and placement of these? and is the energy spent on this whole project still less than the energy saved by recycling chewing gum? (i'm guessing it takes a lot of f*#%ing gum to get a usable material out of it..probably more energy than i wasted on typing this silly comment!?;)
I think the bigger issue here is getting people to make decisions about products they consume, and their lifecycle; from the factory the gum comes from, the packaging, and the waste the gum becomes. Instead of just "throwing it out," these companies are encouraging people to consider alternative uses for an otherwise useless byproduct.
The main problem I've noticed in my neighbourhood here in Toronto (where Envyrobubble has two of their bins) is that people stuff them with everything BUT gum. All kinds of garbage is going into these things.