Gumdrop Bins and Gum-tec
18 February 2020
Gumdrop Ltd
Description
Gumdrop is the first company in the world to find a way of recycling waste chewing gum from our streets and from gum manufacturers into new compounds that can be used in other applications. Gumdrop offers a membership service where Gumdrop Bins are used in public places to collect post-consumer waste gum which is then recycled in an innovative closed loop process to make new bins. One full Gumdrop Bin once recycled can make three new Gumdrop Bins. It also takes pre-consumer waste from gum manufacturers and turns this into Gum-tec compounds, a family of materials created by Gumdrop to be used more sustainably in applications within the rubber and plastics industries.
Gumdrop on-the-go is a mobile personal post-consumer waste solution invented for individuals to dispose of their chewing gum in a portable key ring whilst mobile. As a whole Gumdrop aims to bring about behavioural change in the general disposal of litter through introducing good practice in gum disposal using its unique solutions.
Instead of going to landfill Gumdrop offers a waste solution that enable the end user to dispose of their gum knowing it will give the gum a second life in the form of a new bin to start the cycle again or as a Gum-tec product both being recycled, to date the company is saving our clients over half a million pounds a year in cleaning costs.
Added value
- Gumdrop Bins are installed in more than 750 locations throughout the UK
- We are currently saving our partners more than £500,000 a year in cleaning costs
- Where Gumdrop Bins are installed, there is on average, a reduction in gum litter of more than 46% within 12 weeks of implementation and this increases over time
- We are developing a global footprint with current projects in Italy and New Zealand and future projects planned in France, Spain, Sweden and Australia
- Gumdrop reinforces the concept of a circular economy; the company only has a 3% waste output from it’s processes.
Challenges
- The general conditions in the UK have been favourable for the development of the Gumdrop project.
- Chewing gum litter (the second most common type of litter next to cigarette butts) is a social problem, defacing many of the public areas in our towns and cities and once highlighted, there is a clear will to address this problem.
- There were no existing solutions for the collection of gum waste and the processing of this with a view to giving it a second life before Gumdrop.