The Guardian today reports that boffins from Bristol have invented a Non-stick gum [that] could slash £150m street cleaning costs

Ian Sample, science correspondent
The Guardian Friday September 14 2007

Non-stick chewing gum which can be washed off streets and degrades naturally in the environment has been developed by a team of British scientists.

This is great news, for as the photo shows, it can be a really dirty problem. I will never understand why people think it is acceptable to spit out or drop gum on the floor. Or why people don't regularly get caught and fined £85 or whatever it is like some high profile cases recently of smokers dropping their fag ends on the street. But apparently:

Some people are grubby anti-social s**ts!
Originally uploaded by artyfarty.

Councils in Britain spend £150m each year cleaning gum from the streets, with Westminster council alone spending £90,000 a year.

In itself that's interesting because I'm sure the other day I read it costs little old Oxford about £45,000 a year. But get this - it costs £150m a year to remove the stuff that's been disposed of anti-socially, yet the story also says that:

Versions of the product, called Clean Gum, in lemon and mint flavours, could then be launched in 2008. The British chewing gum market, dominated by Wrigley's, is worth nearly £300m a year.

So hang on - it costs half the value of the entire chewing gum market each year to clean up the bits that aren't properly disposed of? Amazing. What's the equivalent ratio on nuclear power decommissioning?