It's one of the downsides of gum — people will chew it and dispose of it in the grossiest ways! Now there's an answer to that, a biodegradable gum called Simply Gum.
The manufacturers explain on their website: "It turns out that regular chewing gum is made of a plastic base and filled with questionable substances like aspartame and BHT. Consumers are kept in the dark because the FDA allows brands to hide synthetic ingredients in the catch-all term "gum base" on the label."
The Daily Mail reports that more than 100,000 tons of chewing gum is consumed in the UK annually and about 95 per cent of the UK's streets are stained with it. So the problem is very real.
Launched in the USA a few years ago, Simply Gum already has a celeb support, including from Kourtney Kardashian.
Thank you to @kourtneykardash for trying our gum tonight on @KUWTK!! #simplygum #kardashian pic.twitter.com/cQp45bF6tL
— Simply Gum (@SimplyGum) May 16, 2016
The company also has a line of breath mints and they claim that their gum and mints are made from "real ingredients, delicious flavours." The gum is not yet available from retailers in SA, but there are a few online stockists that ship to SA