London, January 19:

Bus seats, school desks and suede boots will have something to celebrate this week in the UK, with a nationwide crackdown on their greatest scourge: chewing gum.

Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson is known for spitting out his chewing gum, but he is not alone: half the UK population — 28 million — are regular gum-chewers.

The popularity of gum has resulted in about 3.5 billion bits being spat out on to Britain’s streets in the last century. The problem is not just unsightly and annoying — especially when the gum sticks to shoes, clothes and even hair — but expensive, too.

British local authorities say they spend about 4.5 million pounds a year to clear up just some of the gum as to do the job properly would cost 150 million pounds.

This week every municipal council in Britain will be sent a guide on how to tackle the sticky problem — from advertisements telling people to dispose of their gum carefully, to ‘pouches’ for used gum.

There will also be an ‘awareness campaign’ about new fines of up to 75 pounds. The gum manufacturer Wrigley’s has put up 600,000 pounds to fund the drive.

“All local authorities have a problem with chewing gum,” the UK environment minister Ben Bradshaw says, “We really hope to help local authorities reduce gum litter, reduce the money they spend on cleaning it up and, in turn, help increase the pride people have in their communities.”

The nationwide push to get tough on gum-dropping is being led by the Chewing Gum Action Group, set up last year by the UK government, Wrigley’s and the Keep Britain Tidy charity. Gum takes five years to biodegrade. The gum that is trodden into pavements is removed with high-powered cleaning hoses — each piece takes 10 seconds to clean at a cost of 10 pence.

Some councils spend 200,000 pounds a year each on the problem — equivalent to six teachers’ salaries.

Last May saw the launch of three pilot schemes in Preston and Manchester in the north west of England and in Maidstone in the south east, where councils spent 180,000 pounds on advertising, free plastic pouches for putting used gum in, and wardens to enforce fines for litter dropping.

In Preston, the only city with figures available, gum dropping was reduced by 80 per cent, though only one person was fined for gum dropping.

The UK’s Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is considering applications from another 12 councils to join the scheme, and will exhort all authorities to join the nationwide crackdown.