An idea that doubles the pleasure, doubles the fun!

There's nothing worse than coming across someone's old gum. 

Everyone has bad memories of putting our hands under the seats of the school bus when we were kids or coming across gum stuck under tables in public places.

And if we step in it... ugh.  Anyone else ever had to hop on one leg while trying to clean out a shoe tread with a stick?  It's never fun.

Most of us just think of already-been-chewed gum as something to be avoided, and something we desperately hope we'll never have to deal with.

This isn't just a modern problem either.  Not long ago, an archeology student found a 5,500 year old piece of gum in Finland.  It even had toothmarks.  Yuck.

London designer Anna Bullus, however, has done something really cool about the gum situation.  She combined bio resin with used (and sterilized) chewing gum to come up with a spiffy biodegradable gum disposal.

It's cool because:

• It's a bubble that people can put their gum in!  (Who can resist the pun?)

• Once it's filled, the whole thing is sterilized, and made into new bubblebins.

I like it not only because it helps keep people from just sticking their gum everywhere, but also because it takes a "used-up" product--that most people would just throw away--and begins a positive cycle of renewal.

Plus, it also is an eye-catching addition to the London streets.  With all the rainy weather, the bright pink bubbles are sure to make people smile.

The best part about it, though, is that Anna created something new and useful out of something that we would normally think of as trash.

Most of us see a used object as something that is finished. Kaput. Done with.  Something to forget about as soon as it hits that trash bin.

But what if there is an opportunity there?  Are we missing possibilities because we're so quick to throw things away?

Comments

[erin]

wow! that is really unique. and i'm interested to learn how she "sanitized" the gum or figured out how to. hopefully, she started with her own first:)

[soheil]

Have you seen Last Tango in Paris? I actually really like what Brando does with his chewed up gum in the last scene, he turns the gum into an existential emblem

[Kay]

That's pretty cool, I wonder what else you could make with it.

[Soleil]

That's great, the chance of touching something with someone else' saliva will be lessened. If I remember it right, they banned gums in Singapore because it's unsanitary.