BROMSGROVE District Council and West Mercia Police are teaming up with Gumdrop to bring recycling bins for chewing gum to Bromsgrove town centre.

The brightly coloured bins, which are made from recycled chewing gum, have been invested in to encourage people to dispose of their gum in the correct way.

They’ve been installed down the high street and Worcester Road near to Argos, EE, Eyedeal Eyecare, Allen Morris, and Neale’s Garage.

Cllr Margaret Sherrey, Bromsgrove District Council’s portfolio holder for environmental services, said: “You might have seen us talking about these new bins at our ‘Love Where You Live’ events over the summer, and now they’re here.

"With them you can give your gum a second life. It can be recycled into wellies, stationery, and more.

"Hopefully they will also help reduce the unsightly mess of chewing gum that gets littered onto our pavements too. Gum is expensive to remove and if people didn’t drop it we could use the money spent on cleaning it up on improvements instead.”

Bromsgrove District Council spends around £800,000 a year cleaning up the district.

The Local Government Association said councils spend £60 million a year in removing chewing gum with 95 per cent of the UK's main shopping streets are gum-stained, according to Keep Britain Tidy.

Sergeant David King, from West Mercia Police, said: “We want to improve the environment of the town and the bins are provided so that people have even more means to dispose of their chewing gum. There’s nothing worse than getting gum on the bottom of your shoe.”