Chewing gum:In the words of the old song, Does Your Chewing Gum Lose its Flavour on the Bedpost Overnight?,taste used to be the big issue of concern. Now that a non-stick gum has been invented, the new worry is whether the gum would stick at all.
News about a new "easy off" gum came to light at a session yesterday, delivered by its inventor, Prof Terence Cosgrove of the University of Bristol. He described his new gum, saying it chews like the real thing but washes off with water.
Gum had become infamous given the fact that chewers were often indifferent about where they deposited the spent product. "Unfortunately a large number of people dispose of their gum inappropriately. It is a very undesirable thing and may have health aspects to it," Prof Cosgrove suggested.
Even if the public remained unimpressed, the world's local authorities certainly won't be. "The councils are spending a large amount of money to get rid of it." Dublin City Council would agree, given gum removal costs about €60,000 a year. And even after that the pavements still look like they have the measles.
Prof Cosgrove's discovery may result in his picture being hung on the walls of city councils everywhere. "We are calling it low adhesion," he stated modestly before admitting it usually disappears by itself after a day or two and doesn't need to be cleaned away at all.
His breakthrough is a new gum "polymer" that can be mixed in with other gum constituents to make it less sticky. "All chewing gums contain polymers and plastics. The polymers are the same as those found in tyres," he told the festival.
Most gums are "hydrophobic" - they shun water. "Our gum is hydrophilic, which means it has a coating of water around it," he said.
This helps stop it sticking to everything in sight except, unfortunately, leather-soled shoes, but it will wash off with water. "We think we have a pretty good product here," he said, the broad grin on his face undoubtedly because his spinout campus company, Revolymer Ltd, holds a patent on the product.
He described trials where his chewed gum was dropped on various pavement types to see what would happen. In all cases it simply disappeared, perhaps hitchhiking on a pair of leather shoes. "We have done this a number of times and each time it is gone, non-stick in a real environment." He even tried the dreaded "gum in hair" test using a child "volunteer", the daughter of company chief executive Roger Pettman. They had to cut away the ordinary gum but Prof Cosgrove's product washed out.
A panel of 20 taste testers declared the product as good as any commercial brand, and Prof Cosgrove hopes EU food regulators will clear it in time for a launch in early 2008.
By another happy coincidence the new gum is also biodegradable, a characteristic currently under study at University College Cork where they are attempting to develop an eco-friendly biodegradable chewing gum.