Should there be a tax on chewing gum?

how about a facility for handing your chewed gum in and being able to reclaim the tax !

i wish all i had to worry about was poxy chewing gum, can't all the dole wallers do it for free

I would ban the stuff but would also support taxation.

Oh God not again... I've been through all this in Singapore and they looked like a bunch of tossers then...

I'll chew this one over.

I don't agree on more tax, just heavier fines and a day or two cleaning chewing gun from the street should sort the problem.

I don't believe a tax on sticks sold would influence overall sales, nor do I believe that the tax raised would be spent on cleaning the streets, so perhaps a better way would be legislation to allow councils to bill manufacturers directly for the cost of cleaning pavements. A direct cost might encourage manufacturers to change to a degradable formula, failing that I'd ban the stuff also. Banning works for Singapore.

I'd favour an outright ban. Have to say, sometimes "Nanny States" like Singapore (Who, incidentally. no longer ban the stuff but don't have the problem that we do because people got the idea eventually that it was antisocial) have the right approach. It is only after our pavements are clean again and we no longer find it on our cinema seats or the bottoms of our shoes, everyone will appreciate what a menace the stuff is.

Excellent idea - I have witnessed the midnight steaming squads cleaning our pavements from this filthy stuff. What do they do in Germany? They're pretty obsessive about clean streets

Alan T has it right. The manufacturers would soon develop a biodegradable product. I also agree with the idea of forced labour to clean the streets. Catching the culprits could be done by secretly installed and roving cameras with the proviso that anything else caught on camera beyond littering and short of murder or rape would be ignored.

Takeaway packaging and alcohol containers should also be made biodegradable. Living in a bedsit area, my front garden is regularly full of bottles, cans and styrofoam containers. A year spent tethered to the shafts a litter collecting cart for 12 hours every Saturday and Sunday would encourage a sense of civic responsibility in the most drunken lout.

The pavements round here are covered in chewing gum. There should be a tax for the damage and unsightly views it causes.

Some "people" spit on the streets anyway, without chewing gum, which is equally revolting and should be made an offence.

Tax at £1.00 a packet collected from the manufacturers to pay for the cleaning of our streets.

The levy on chewing gum sales should be so high that confectionary companies will have doubts as to whether they can sell enough to make a profit. Then the whole of the levy should be passed to Local Councils for a regular "clean-up" operation

There is a tax on chewing gum already. It is called VAT.

I thought a lot of councils in the past had laws banning spitting in the street (to prevent spread of TB ?). Dumping chewing gum is tantamount to spitting so probably the old laws could be applied. The practice of spitting encouraged by the disgusting behaviour exhibited every time a football match is shown on TV also needs dealing with.

Wrigleys once put out an ad entitled 'Certainly Not Here', showing a number of elegant occasions when you would not chew gum. 'But in the privacy of your home, we would recommend that you enjoy our product' -- or words to that effect. Chewing gum in the street is not recommended and is certainly not elegant.

What about a returnable deposit scheme as they used to have for beer bottles. Return your used gum to the shop and get your deposit returned

Absolutely, tax it out of existence - its a revolting habit to distribute it everywhere when you've finished with it, and the same goes for spitting - we need a ban on any TV station showing any incident of spitting at football matches. The brainless idiots doing it would soon learn to curb their habits when their publicity value took a dive.

Yes of course a tax should be paid because gum is not a food its spate out - dumped -stuck to the benches in churches - crematoriams- seats of busses just anywhere but in a waste bin and taxing it wont stop the foul behaviour of transferring body fluids to be available for someone else to touch, remember the scourge of TB.

Yes, taxes should hammer undesirable activities such as chewing gum, plastic surgery, exotic pets, drinks with added sugar, SUV's. and garden gnomes. The upper limit on NI contributions should also be scrapped.

The tax wouldnt be used to clean it up, if all of the tax on vehicles, road tax and fuel tax had been used to improve transport infrastructure we would have the best most efficient transport system in the World.

Chewing gum tax wont keep your soles any cleaner.

I must say, "Wrigleys" comment had me smiling! The problem is not the gum. I like chewing gum, but I don't flob it onto the bus seats... The problem is one that reflects many of the other ills in our society, in that a large number of people simply have no respect for their fellow neighbour.

Punitive measures seem to have had little effect in changing behaviours, so I think we need to return to some good old fashion values and community thinkings. Lets mark out the offenders in our communities and shame them into changing their ways. Failing that, send them to our local NHS dentist and she will pull all their teeth out for £45.60... sounds good value to me!