Do you like chewing gum? I hate to say it but…
The “Gum base” is plastic
My sister chewed gum for the first time when she was younger and she swallowed it. And someone said to her that the gum will stay in her body for a long time. Time passed by and I happened to see the shocking fact. I was researching how we can reduce plastics and someone was suggesting one way to reduce plastic is to stop chewing gum.
I see a bunch of black circular stains on the busy street and my parents told me that’s gum. Gum that people spit out and stepped on and became stuck to the asphalt. If the chewing gum is plastic, it makes sense that it doesn’t break down in nature.
I had thought gum was from the sap of the Sapodilla tree…
It turned out the ingredients used to be from plants, but after World War II, manufacturers replaced it with a synthetic product due to growing demand. Today synthetic products such as butadiene-based synthetic rubber, petroleum wax, petroleum wax synthetic, polyethylene and polyisobutylene polyvinyl acetate are used instead of natural materials. I recognize these as different names for plastic. Poly~blah stuff… Yuck.
You didn’t know that you were chewing plastic because the manufacturing companies don't tell you that plastic is in the gum. Instead, they use the term “gum base”.
The amount of people who chew gum is huge worldwide. The market is worth around USD $19 billion a year. According to research from Just One Ocean, 100,000 tons of chewing gums pollution (which is plastic pollution) are thrown into the environment every year. Crazy!
Nobody wants to recycle the chewing gum. (Well, it’s impossible.) And as I always say, plastic lasts hundreds of years.
My parents told me chewing gum was illegal in Singapore when they were visiting. It wasn’t because of the plastic pollution but to keep the country clean. But they are still contributing to reducing plastics with this law. Singapore is the first country to ban chewing gum. A law which began in 1992. By law you cannot import it and sell it. (As a result of the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, this ban was partially lifted in 2004 and the country is now allowed to sell "therapeutic" gum prescribed by a doctor).
Don’t be sad! I know you want to help keep our planet clean but you love chewing gum! Fortunately plastic-free chewing gums exist too! All you need is just to pay a little more attention to what you are buying. Try to look for the words “plastic free” or “plant based”. There are companies who care about the planet and chewing gum at the same time! Most of the time, these gums have non-plastic packaging as well.
Here are some plastic-free chewing gums, Oh My Gum! Forest Gum Nuud Glee Gum Chewsy
Enjoy!