Bubble Gum Fate

In 2018, global chewing gum sales eclipsed 30 billion dollars. Most chewing gum gets its flexible and lasting texture from a polyisobutene, a synthetic plastic polymer that allows it to be chewed for long periods of time without breaking down. Prior to 1928, when Walter Diemer came up with the modern pink bubble gum, humans practiced their continual mastication on resin, wax, or other natural materials.  Unfortunately, they did not have the same lasting effect, nor an enjoyable sugary taste.

Today, gum is one of the most commonly purchased and used goods on the planet. In 2005, 650,000 metric tons of chewing gum in the form of 3.74 trillion sticks were produced around the world. The synthetic material that makes chewing gum last while it is being enjoyed by both children and adults alike, make it last well beyond that as well; the synthetic material is neither digestible nor biodegradable. While not toxic to the chewer, they do create a problem that is often overlooked.  It simply does not go away.

Used chewing gum can often be found adhered to streets and sidewalks, sides of buildings, in landfills and sewers, and on the underside of countless chairs and desks around the world.  In fact, the likelihood of used chewing gum is so prevalent that the thought of reaching your hand towards the underside of a desk or table in a fast food restaurant is enough to make most people cringe.

Used gum ends up in these places the same way that litter ends up in a gutter or a grocery cart is left in the middle of a parking lot.  It is the "out of sight, out of mind" solution to minor inconveniences, but instead of being swept under the rug, they are stuck to the bottom of a desk.

We have all done it as some time or another.  We've found gum stuck to the bottom of our shoe, or felt the left over pieces of chewed materials when we reach down to adjust our chair or moved a table from one side of the room to another.  In that moment, what was once out of sight and out of mind has suddenly become alarmingly evident to our germaphobic psyche.  And we curse whoever put it there.

The basic psychological principal is that once something is no longer MY problem, it ceases to be A problem.  In reality, the problem still exists, it has simply been passed on to somebody else. In the United States, the average cost of a piece of gum is three cents.  The average cost of cleaning up a piece of gum from a sidewalk, wall, or chair is ten cents.   In Ireland, chewing gum makes up over 11% of litter left on the ground, and it has been reported that 92% of paving stones in Great Britain have had gum stuck to them at some point. And while the person who left the gum there is usually not the one cleaning it up, there is a good chance that their tax dollars are paying for it, as if karma comes with interest.

There are countless examples of stories of individuals through history who tried to cheat fate or avoid responsibility, only to have find them in the end.  Oedipus, who was hidden away by his mother because of a prophecy that he would kill his own father, eventually kills him anyways as a stranger at a crossroads brings a curse upon him and his family.  An entire generation of teenagers was terrified of following behind logging trucks because of a potential for disaster. These stories, and more like them, are all crafted as a warning that by trying to avoid a problem, we can create something worse.

In Greek drama, it is a form of Hamartia, a form of pride or flaw that leads to a character's downfall, most notably, while trying to avoid the downfall itself.  In many cases, it is attempt to avoid a problem in which another is created.  The moral of these types of stories is often summarized in the phrase "you can't cheat fate." Or, in modern terms, what goes around, comes around.

Whether it is out of fear, laziness, selfishness, or ignorance, it is not uncommon for any human being to try to deflect their responsibilities in order to avoid a minor inconvenience (sticking your gum beneath your chair) or an extremely painful or difficult situations (leaving the scene of a hit and run).  Large or small, the premise of it no longer being MY PROBLEM allows a person to justify their actions or lack of actions by telling themselves that it is no longer A PROBLEM.  Unfortunately, this is simply not the case as A PROBLEM eventually grows into OUR PROBLEM, and more often than not, it has become a much larger or more complicated issue with more adverse consequences.

The issue is that the cost is passed from the person who received something, to an unsuspecting person who has received nothing. Even if the cost is small, such scraping a chewed up piece of the sidewalk or walking the grocery cart back to the proper stall, it is still being paid for by someone who received no gain for their effort. 

The situation is easily seen when someone walks away from a restaurant without paying for their meal. It is still being paid for by chef's time who prepared it, the bus boy's effort who cleared the table, and the owner's money who paid for the materials, rent, electricity and silverware.

Passing responsibility is theft, but even worse is that cost of it grows with each new passing. It comes with additional aggravation, anger, or cost at overall greater expense of the collective whole. Similar to a piece of gum that costs more to clean up when thrown on the sidewalk than it does to actually manufacture, package, transport, sell and toss in the trash.  When a problem is passed on to someone else, it will almost always become a larger overall problem that if it had been handled appropriately.