Mexico Declares War on Chewing Gum

Mexico City’s director for conservation of public spaces, Ricardo Jaral, is fed up with seeing his city covered in sticky gobs. Downtown Mexico City has recently undergone a costly renovation, and although the buildings are beautiful the pavement is not. The 700-year old city is paved with porous stones whose rough ridges are packed with sticky discarded gum. Experts estimate that each square yard of sidewalk in downtown Mexico City is littered with at least 70 gobs of chewing gum.

So Jaral is leading the city in a charge to clean up the city sidewalks and teach citizens how to get rid of their chew in a way that doesn’t gum up the walkways. The city has bought ten machines that spray sidewalks with chemicals that break down gum deposits and steam them away, and conservation agents are planning a massive cleanup initiative beginning in February.

The basic recipe for today’s chewing gum actually was born in Mexico in the 1860s, when the American inventor Thomas Adams was given some Mexican chicle by Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Adams worked with the chicle to try to invent a substitute for rubber, but when those attempts failed, he added sugar and flavorings to the chicle and then sold it as a children’s candy treat.

In the 1940s, the chicle resin was replaced with a synthetic gum base that lasted longer, and Mexico quickly put aside its natural gum base, the biodegradable chicle, and began using the American recipe. Nowadays Mexicans chew an average of 2.6 pounds of gum every year-one of the highest rates anywhere in Latin America. And unfortunately, a lot of that gum ends up on the pavement.

Discarded chewing gum isn’t a new problem, and it’s not unique to Mexico City. Singapore banned chewing gum once in order to keep its sidewalks gob-free, and gum chewers still have to register at a pharmacy before they can purchase gum. Staten Island, New York, is home to the Rid-a-Gum company, which sells hundreds of German-built sidewalk cleaning machines to American cities each year.

Another attack Mexico is launching is the development of a natural organic chewing gum made of ingredients that break down more quickly than traditional gums, so it doesn’t last as long if it is spit onto the sidewalk. A cooperative of chicle harvesters in southern Mexico is planning to launch a line of chewing gums that dissipate more quickly on streets, sidewalks, and benches, even in the sun. The harvesters say that when the product dries up, it breaks down and simply turns to dust, and can then be peeled off.

The public awareness campaign Jaral has launched even tells people that when they chew gum, they have two options for disposing of it properly-by wrapping it in a piece of paper and throwing it in a trash receptacle, or by swallowing it. That last suggestions is drawing some heat from pediatricians and physicians who say that swallowing chewing gum isn’t the best advice to give people, especially children. Although gum usually passes through the digestive system on its own, it can bind up with other food passing through and result in an intestinal blockage. Although it isn’t usually life-threatening and can be treated, physicians usually caution against swallowing gum.

Jaral thinks it’s worth a try. "I’ve always swallowed my gum," he said," and it’s never done me any harm."