One of Scotland’s largest shopping centres, The Centre Livingston, has become the first mall in Scotland to launch a chewing gum recycling initiative that will see discarded gum being transformed into a range of reusable products, including wellington boots, frisbees and pencils.
From today, (23rd June), visitors will notice 25 bright pink Gumdrop bins located at all entrances of the mall where they will be encouraged to dispose of their gum in a convenient and eco-friendly way to help keep the pavements clean and provide an even better welcoming experience for all visitors to the shopping centre.
The bins, which can be seen in various sites south of the border, including universities and airports, have been specifically designed for the disposal of unwanted chewing gum by Gumdrop Ltd, which is the first company in the world to recycle and process chewing gum into a range of compounds that can be used in the rubber and plastics industry, to help reduce gum littering.
The material produced from recycled gum is called Gum-tec® which can be used in existing manufacturing processes such as injection and blow moulding to create a variety of plastic products including frisbees, wellington boots, mobile phone covers, stationery and also new Gumdrop bins so that the cycle can start again.
The closed loop recycling process is designed to educate and inspire people to give gum a second life and to ‘bin it, not chuck it’.
Ashley Bisland, Deputy Centre Director at The Centre, Livingston said: “We take every step of our customer experience seriously at The Centre, Livingston and work hard to make sure our shoppers receive a warm welcome when they arrive and one way to do this was to clean up our entrances.
“We are encouraging shoppers to dispose of their unwanted gum into our bright pink Gumdrop boxes before they enter and leave, not only as it will help us to keep the pavements clean but it’s also a fantastic recycling initiative to be part of where unwanted gum is processed into really useful products like pencils and wellington boots.”
