In May 2005 Tidy Northern Ireland released the results of the new Borough Cleanliness Survey undertaken by seven pilot councils including Derry City Council. The results found that the two most prevalent forms of litter found on the streets were cigarette-related litter and chewing gum. Derry City Centre Initiative therefore decided to take action to try and reduce the amount of gum being deposited on its streets. It enlisted the support of the Community Safety Unit, St Joseph's School, Big Fish Design and TIDY Northern Ireland to develop a pilot campaign over the months of September and October 2005 to discover if the production and distribution of 'Chewing Gum Disposal Papers' could help alleviate the problem.

Tidy Northern Ireland was contracted to conduct pre-campaign media activity and to survey the selected street before the campaign started and then two and six weeks after it had commenced. This report brings together the results of each survey and makes comments and recommendations as to how the success of the campaign could be enhanced in the future. It is available for other organisations wishing to replicate the campaign.

The campaign involved distributing gum wrappers to encourage the public to use these to dispose of their gum rather than spitting it out. Gum wrappers are small booklets contained pieces of paper that can be torn off and used to wrap around used gum. Since the success of this campaign TIDY Northern Ireland has encouraged other organisations (North Down Borough Council and Translink) to use this mechanism as a way to reduce the cost of removing gum mess from pavements. For more information on gum wrappers visit http://www.gum-rap.com/ (TIDY Northern Ireland is not responsible for the contents of external web site)