You’ve probably seen globs of chewing gum stuck to the sidewalk. The main ingredient in gum is often a rubber-like material that doesn’t biodegrade, so those wads can last a long time. Two design students at a college in Nantes, France, noticed clumps of gum dotting the city’s streets. Then they learned how much scraping it away cost the city. That led them to come up with a plan to recycle the gum into skateboard wheels!
Last year, the two students, Hugo Maupetit and Vivian Fischer, set up collection boards on the city’s streets. People stuck their chewed gum to the boards instead of tossing it onto the ground. The pair collected the gum, then had it cleaned, melted, and molded into colorful wheels.
The wheels aren’t for sale yet, though Maupetit says he’s gotten a lot of requests from skateboarders. He wants the project to encourage other people to get creative to help the environment.
“I hope it can inspire people not to limit themselves in what they can recycle,” he says.