Spiked, originally uploaded by cmbellman.
Special thanks to Anders Adermark who graciously offered his permission to use this great image of his; you can see more of his amazing photographs on his Flickr photostream.
chewing gum foil crane, originally uploaded by !TYZA!!.
PHOTO: The Straits Times
While Jackie Chan’s recent comments on political control of the Chinese have gained him a certain level of notoriety (see this Opinion piece from the New York Times for an in-depth review of those comments), he also took on the gum chewing policies of Singapore in the same speech, as reported in The Straits Times this past weekend.
The newspaper noted that Chan suggested the following about gum and Singaporeans during the speech:
…he also lashed out at Singaporeans’ lack of social graces, The New Paper reported on Saturday. “Sometimes, I wonder why I can’t eat chewing gum in Singapore. Then, I think it’s actually right not to eat chewing gum,” he was reported as having said.
“If I let you eat chewing gum, those people will leave them on tables and chairs. They have no self-respect at all.”
Japanese gum with papers for spitting out!, originally uploaded by Snuffywump.
PHOTO: Wales Online
Cardiff City football club fan David Roberts, of Pontypridd, South Wales, was the first to receive a lifetime ban for throwing “missiles” during matches.
Yesterday’s South Wales Echo reported on the judgment from the Cardiff Magistrates’ Court after the 24-year-old admitted throwing gum at the 5 April championship.
The newspaper reported that while Roberts felt regret for his actions, he says did not fling a coin, which drew blood when it hit referee Mike Dean:
“He accepts in interview that in flicking a piece of chewing gum towards the playing area he got swept up in the emotion of a local derby match between Swansea and Cardiff.
“He accepts he should not have done so and he accepts that the court has to deal with him.”
A spokesman for the football club felt, though, that the stiff fine was an appropriate deterrent to fans who go over the line in throwing things onto the field:
“He’s had the full sentence and I’ve glad they’ve done that and hopefully they can catch the other handful of people who threw objects and bring them to justice.
“I know these things take a while but hopefully in another couple of months we can have some more convictions.
“It’ll hopefully act as a deterrent for other fans. It’ll be stupid missing football because of a rush of blood.”
Last Friday’s Hospitality Magazine website in Australia reviewed a biodegradable stain removal product, Lift Off, invented by chemist Gregg Motsenbocker for removing stains, including the ongoing challenge of discarded gum.
As the magazine notes, the product has no ammonia or solvent smell and “…it can be used on any surface without damaging or degrading the surface or the environment.”
There are three different varieties available, but when it comes to gum, it’s the second variety that you want:
Lift Off 2 removes oil and petroleum-based stains such as oil, grease, labels, chewing gum and candle wax, all of which will disappear from areas such as metal, plastic, wood, glass (labels), hair (chewing gum), carpet and fabric.
Upwards, Somewhere, originally uploaded by JohnnyBallgame.
While AndrewsGumWorld doesn’t often hear from the people we write about, we got a nice note yesterday from our friends at GumClear, who were featured in a post we wrote just over a month ago regarding their efforts in Kirkintilloch in Scotland to tackle the significant problem of disposed gum. Here’s what the note said:
Just spotted this article about the Kirkintilloch project we were involved with - it went very well.
We use an environmentally friendly removal technique that minimises the amount of water used and disruption to the locality. We also make sure our work is highly visible, hopefully helping to change people’s habits so the dispose of their gum responsibly.
As you may have read elsewhere in AndrewsGumWorld, we fully not only responsible gum use (as a reminder: in the mouth or in the garbage bin), but also the great work that companies like GumClear does to find environmentally friendly solutions to the problem of disposed gum. You can read more about their work on their informative site (including some great insights about the scope of this challenge), but here are some more details about why their approach is, indeed, environmentally friendly:
Problems with High Pressure Power Washing
Traditional high pressure power washing uses around 8 litres of water per minute, which can quickly flood an area and cause damage by dislodging the grout and sand in paving joints.Power washing also tends to merely move the chewing gum to another area where it reforms and sticks to the surface again.
Specialist Gum Removal Equipment
The equipment used by Gum Clear has been specifically designed to remove gum from external surfaces and uses only 2 litres of water per hour, minimising the environmental impact of the cleaning process.
