On city streets, seats and tables everywhere, there is one menace that lurks, waiting to ruin your clothing, trash your trainers and double your dry cleaning bill.... Chewing Gum is a menace for the authorities and very expensive to shift. One possible solution is the Gum Poster:a large one-sheet repository featuring the faces of those you love to hate! In some cities where this idea has been rolled out, it has proved so popular that the posters have sported removable sheets which are changed six days a week to stop the gum building up!  At BBC Liverpool, we want to do our part to confront the problem of tacky tables and sticky shoes, so we've created our own Scouse 'Gum Poster' for you to download and print out! Which of these Liverpool greats will you reward with a little spearmint hat or an everlasting gobstopper? Happy Chewing! Download Gum Poster:PDF | MS Word NB: we know that Michael Jackson has nothing to do with Liverpool, but couldn't resist that photo! He did play at Aintree once! It is estimated that local UK authorities spend £150m a year tackling chewy. Pressure is mounting on gum makers to invent non-polluting chewing gum or be faced with the clean-up bill. In China, police have got down on their knees to scrape spat-out gum from Tiananmen Square. The authorities are spending £100,000 trying to develop a strong enough chemical to shift the problem. In Singapore, a ban on chewing gum introduced in 1991 is still in place, although those who have medical certificates are allowed to carry on chewing. In the UK, £281m of chewing gum is purchased by consumers each year, so a non-polluting gum is a very attractive prospect. The preferred route would be to make it biodegradable, but with research and manufacture costs, it could mean that a few sticks of breath-freshening chewy would cost a lot more! The History of Lip Smacking Gum  The ancient Greeks chewed 'mastiche' - a chewing gum made from the resin of the mastic tree.
 The ancient Mayans chewed 'chicle' which is the sap from the sapodilla tree.
 North American Indians chewed the sap from spruce trees and passed the habit along to the settlers.
 Early American settlers made a chewing gum from spruce sap and beeswax.
 In 1848, John B. Curtis made and sold the first commercial chewing gum called the 'State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum.'
 In 1850, Curtis started selling flavored paraffin gums becoming more popular than spruce gums.
On December 28 1869, William Finley Semple became the first person to patent a chewing gum - U.S patent #98,304. In 1869, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna introduced Thomas Adams to 'chicle.' In 1871, Thomas Adams patented a machine for the manufacture of gum. In 1880, John Colgan invented a way to make chewing gum taste better for a longer period of time while being chewed. By 1888, an Adams' chewing gum called 'Tutti-Frutti' became the first chew to be sold in a vending machine. The machines were located in a New York City subway station. In 1899, 'Dentyne gum' was created by New York druggist Franklin V. Canning. In 1906, Frank Fleer invented the first bubble gum called 'Blibber-Blubber' gum. However, the bubble blowing chew was never sold. In 1914, Wrigley Doublemint brand was created. William Wrigley, Jr. and Henry Fleer were responsible for adding the popular mint and fruit extracts to a chicle chewing gum. In 1928, an employee of the Frank H. Fleer Company, Walter Diemer, invented the successful pink colored 'Double Bubble' bubble gum. The very first bubble gum was invented by Frank Henry Fleer in 1906. Fleer's recipe was later perfected by Walter Diemer, who called his product 'Double Bubble.' So what do you think? Do you chew more gum than Violet Beauregarde? Is a person more attractive with a stationary jaw? Have your say here: Geoff
It is a nasty, smelly disgusting habit that should be taxed at about 500% to cover the costs of clearing it up after the scumbags chuck it anywhere they feel like. Singapore had the right answer. It should be banned! BoxCar
I'm from the U.S. and we have the same "sticky" problem here with chewing gum. We'd gladly send MJ in person to help the problem in Liverpool! Bobby
I love love to put it on mj too. Tim
Ha! I would defo stick my chewy on MJ! Or Houllier! Much better than a bin! Joe Thompson
I love chewy. I buy 5 packs a day, and can fit 7 or 8 in at a time. Im forever blowing bubbles. | 
