Sticky situation in Blackburn is hard to bear

Chewing gum wraps, small pieces of paper to collect the waste, are also to be sent to schools to stop children dropping gum.

The gummy bins are made of durable plastic, and contain a cylinder where the gum is collected, and will be attached to lamp posts in the town centre.

Town hall chiefs said it was part of the council's drive to cut the costs of dealing with clearing gum from the borough's streets.

The gum from the bins will be collected and later recycled to make things like the surface for all weather sports pitches.

The bins are not costing the council anything as it is a pilot project run alongside the manufacturers of the bins, Macclesfield-based Gummy Bins Ltd.

Coun Mohammed Khan, Blackburn with Darwen Council's executive member for housing and neighbourhoods, said: "Chewing gum is becoming more and more of a problem for local authorities.

"Not only does it look messy, stick to shoes and stain pavements, the cost of removal is also rising.

"We hope that by looking at new and innovative ways of dealing with this issue we will be able to stem the rising costs and save the taxpayer some money.

"Everyone should be striving to make Blackburn a cleaner, greener and safer' place to be.

"I hope that people make use of the new ways of disposing of used chewing gum and help us make the borough's streets cleaner."

Last year the council joined other authorities from across the country to campaign for more money from chewing gum producers to help pay for the cost of cleaning up the stuff.

Earlier this year the group took out an advert in a national newspaper calling for action on the issue.

The group said that it costs 3p to make a piece of gum, but 10p to clean it off the street.

The council spends about £1.5million each year cleaning the borough's streets and scraping up chewing gum is included in this figure.

It is estimated that in the UK, 20 million people consume more than 935 million packs of gum each year.