[Podcast] 'Grow For Good™' S02 E7: The Intersection of Recycling and Design with Gumdrop's Anna Bullus

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On this episode of the Grow For Good™ podcast, Jed sits down with Gumdrop's Founder, Anna Bullus.

Show Notes:

If you have any questions or suggestions for future guests, send an email to growforgood@moreycreative.com.

Read the episode transcript below.

Anna Bullus [Snippet]: I think if we can change something, as small as dropping a piece of chewing gum on the ground, then actually we have a platform to change much bigger things when it comes to waste and litter in our environment.

Intro [Voiceover]: It's an age-old question. Can you do well by doing good? Welcome to the Grow For Good™ podcast, where we speak with leaders who strive to make a positive impact on the world. Here's the host of the Grow For Good™ podcast, Jed Morey.

Jed Morey: Signs, signs, everywhere signs. Some of the most inspiring innovations happen when curiosity seekers read the signs that are all around us. The things that most of us see and either don’t think twice about or assume that it’s simply too daunting to tackle.

Anna Bullus saw the signs everywhere. Those little white specs ground into the pavement and on sidewalks everywhere or, worse, maybe stuck to the bottom of your shoe. Gum. I think it’s fair to say that few things in this world give both simple joy to most people and cause disgust when it’s discarded.

Gumdrop was born when Anna Bullus wondered just how much gum was discarded and whether there was a way to give it a “second life.” Not necessarily a question you might expect from someone who studied three dimensional design in college. But that part will make sense in a moment.

These are the Grow For Good™ stories we’ve come to cherish and I know you will too when you hear Anna’s story and how she is creating a second life for one of the most universal products in the world.

JM: Hey, it's Jed Morey from Morey Creative Studios back with another inspiring episode of Grow For Good™. And as always, I encourage you to also check out our social justice podcast, News Beat. Search News Beat in your preferred platform. Let's get on with the show!

This week. I am joined by Anna Bullus, founder of Gumdrop, a company that, as you heard in the introduction is quite possibly one of the most unique entrepreneurial experiments that we have seen. Anna, thank you so much for joining us today.

AB: Thank you for having me, it's an absolute pleasure.

JM: Okay Anna. It's often the case when we interview entrepreneurs on the show that the idea for their company started with some sort of simple observation that grew into an obsession and culminated in this life's journey as a business. That is certainly the case with Gumdrop, you saw something that we all see and yet you turned it around in your mind to form a surprising and unique solution. So, let's set the table for everyone. Can you tell everybody about the moment that this idea sort of formed in your mind?

AB: It was some time ago. I was at university, Brighton University, and I was studying three-dimensional design. I was incredibly passionate about design, the environment and at the time, I specialized in plastics.

We had an end of year project where I was looking at curbside litter and just researching sort of what the different types of litter were, what people were doing with them. whether there are any initiatives available to actually recycle those litters.

I was walking home from university one day, and I decided to pick up all of the litter that I came across on my way home. And when I got home, I decided I would Google and I would just see what people were doing with them. One of the things that I found was a piece of chewing gum. And I thought, “What is this? What are people doing with this?” So, it really started there, when I actually sat at my desk and I put into Google, “What is chewing gum? What is gum litter?”

I could not find anything in terms of a front-end solution, where people were looking at how to change behavior or recycle it. It was all end solutions. So, what do we do once it's dropped, how to clean it up? I think that really is where—I think you can call it an obsession, started.

I thought actually there is something in this. It became my absolute focus and aim and obsession to try and create a moldable material using recycled chewing gum. And I think as well, at that time when I was researching, I also read that gum was only declared a litter in 2005, in the UK, which I was just, I was just amazed that it's everywhere. I haven't ever been anywhere and not seen gum litter on the floor. It’s thought to be the second biggest litter, globally. And yet nobody was really doing anything with it. So, I thought, I'm going to give it a go.

JM: Alright, there's so much more to it than, “Hey gum is litter, it's everywhere, and we should do something about it.” So, let's start at the beginning of the process and talk about actually collecting it and how you infuse design into the very beginning stages of tackling this problem.

AB: So, I think originally because in my head, the aim was to create a moldable material using recycled chewing gum, that idea developed into looking at a closed-loop solution. And obviously, I need to get it first in order to create the material. So that was almost the eureka moment for the Gumdrop bin and that was very much focused on a closed-loop process.

The initial idea was then to create a bin in order to collect the gum, which could then be recycled to make more bins. It was actually a very natural idea to come up with in terms of just thinking about a solution of actually how am I going to collect this in the first place. And then actually, if I want to make a material with it, what am I going to do? Well, why don't you just make a bin with the material that I collect?

It was quite a natural idea that came once I started thinking about the logistics of actually, how am I going to get this chewing gum in order to collect and actually do something with it. In the very, very early days, obviously, the Gumdrop bin didn't exist. So, I came up with rather strange ways to try and entice people into giving me their chewing gum. Asking every single friend who was chewing gum if they could just save it and put it in like a little bag for me or a pot. Or if they could just give it to me when they next saw me. Which obviously they thought I was completely mad.

JM: Like, “Oh Anna had such promise. But she's lost her mind. Poor thing.”

AB: [Laughing] Pretty much. So, I actually made these plaques and drilled holes into the plaques and did sort of a dot-to-dot picture. So, the idea was if I could entice the public to put gum into these holes, it would create a picture. And people might be more willing to part with their waste chewing gum. And actually I put these up around town, the university town that I was in. Obviously not asking permission from any council or anything, because I had no idea how to do that. So, they didn't last very long. I did manage to salvage some chewing gum from some very nice people who decided to part with their waste gums. That was the very initial sort of collection method that I used. But the council quickly side-washed that as they took them down.

JM: Even though, now it started from the University of Winchester—is where you went, is that correct? Or is that where you had a pilot program or something like that?

AB: Yeah, they were actually one of the first universities to take up the initiative as a trial and then to move onto actually using one of our products, the Americano Mug. So, they were the first university to actually have the whole process there, in terms of collection, and then once the gum is collected, we'll make a product and then give it back to the students. So that was a really great trial and I think we had 18 locations there. We actually used their gum to create some Americano Mugs which were given out to first-year students in order to try and save paper cups in their cafe.

I think in the first year that they did it they saved over 65,000 paper cups, so it was kind of a double-edged sword in terms of savings, which was fantastic. And they actually now are one of our most regular customers and we do something with them every year for their first-year students, so that's been a brilliant initiative to be involved in.

JM: We're getting too far ahead because I want you to go back now and dig back into your designer brain for a second. Because this is an audio format, so you're going to have to bring the Gumdrop collection bins to life for us. Because the way I see it as just a layperson on the outside is, I'm looking at these and I'm like, “They're just big gum bubbles.” I love it. They're very, very, they're adorable. They're non-intrusive. They look like they belong in a type of community. Can you describe actually what they are, what they look like and how they're made?

AB: Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. The idea from a design point of view was to not make them blend in like a lot of other sort of street furniture that you have and to make people question and go up and have a look and say “What is that?”

It was an obvious design choice to take the bubble gum bubble, which I imagine so many people, as young kids can remember blowing their first bubble, which was just so exciting when you first learned to do it. So, we wanted to take that idea as well as the color. So, they are literally bubblegum bubble-shaped bins which are bright pink, which was the first color that the inventor of chewing gum had available to him in his workshop. And I think that's something that, well I'd say is very much part of our brand, the pink color, as well as the shape.

JM: I love it. So now, going through the process of expanding beyond the pilot program that you did at the university, approaching councils, what's the story? What's the narrative that you tell? Because I imagine that you have to, in order to generate enough awareness, it has to be in front of a population that’s seeing them consistently, that they're getting it into their minds, and then you get into the habit of depositing your used gum there, right? So, I imagine that that's like, you have to sell this. You have to sell it to a community, you have to change some behavior. So, there's the messaging that's on the signs and then the messaging that you're bringing forth to the council. What's that process look like?

AB: Absolutely, I think when we go in to sell the Gumdrop bins, it very much is a story, and it's a story of innovation and it's also a story of trying to inspire the public, to change behavior, which is really difficult. So, this story that it's based on is the fact that it's closed-loop. And I think that is really important to us, right throughout everything we do here at Gumdrop, that's the story that we go with. And the fact that actually, they're one of a kind, nobody else is doing this. The Gumdrop bins when they're full, they come back to us and they get recycled and that chewing gum goes back into making the bins and not only the bins, but you can also make all sorts of other products.

So, with councils, we try and look at products that we can bring back in to give back to the public or whoever we're working with, that makes sense for them. I think again, that's part of the story and that's part of how we try and inspire people to dispose of their gum in a different way. The fact that actually if you put your gum in this Gumdrop bin, you're not only helping to create a better environment for your community, but actually, you're savoring this material that can be made into all sorts of different products. It's a really exciting concept.

JM: I imagine it also inspires conversation. Because these are massive conversation starters. If they, all of a sudden, these big, cool pink looking bins show up around your environment—let's say it's a campus or it’s downtown—it must spark conversation, it must drive people back to the website or maybe to your social media channels to engage with you. There has to be a big curiosity factor here.

AB: Absolutely and I think also one of the biggest things that we do—I don't know why I still find it surprising—but when we talk to our customers, or the people that are using the Gumdrop bins and we say to them, “Can you point out a piece of litter on the floor?” They'll never point out a piece of gum litter. I think we're so ingrained to seeing it and we're so used to it being part of our cityscapes and our environments.

When we turn around to them and say “Actually, this bin is made with recycled chewing gum, and if you put it in here, we could recycle it and make all sorts of other things.” They’re like, “What? How is that even possible?” I think that conversation is also quite inspiring. And then they go on, they'll say I met these people today on the street and they said that you can recycle your chewing gum. I mean that's crazy, who would want to do that? So, it's those kinds of conversations, which we're hoping will stick with people—excuse the pun—and will help us grow ultimately.

JM: [Laughing] I do have a fear that —now the UK I imagine that you actually have good social services and you spend on infrastructure, here it's been quite a while, in the states—and I have a feeling that our chewing gum is actually holding many of our streets together. So, if you could just pause for a little bit and not bring this over to the states, that would be great.

AB: [Laughing]

JM: So, let's get into the disgusting part. Let's talk about the collection. Because this is business now. So, somebody has to collect the bins, you have to bring them somewhere. I imagine that— now again, maybe this is not just somebody from the States talking but a New Yorker talking—I imagine that there are other things in the bin that need to be separated. So, this is still a process, a manufacturing process. Can you tell us a little bit about sort of the front end of the cycle? How you separate the waste from the gum? What that process looks like? And then how the bins get redistributed?

AB: Yes, I think again it’s a part of the design process, one of the things that I was always thinking about was the fact that actually when we get these bins back, we can't have people touching what's inside. We can't have people emptying these bins. Because one, like you said, we get all sorts of things in there.

Bizarrely, two things that we get the most stuff of is money and cigarette butts.

JM: Money?

AB: Yeah, and I think it's because we have really lovely old ladies in the UK who think it's a charity box or something and just drop their pennies off? And cigarette butts, those are the two, two biggest sorts of stray—I don't know whether you can call money a litter, I don't think you can—but items we get in the bins.

So, we very quickly had to come up with a way of sorting the gum from the litter and also from the Gumdrop bin in order to separate those to recycle. We found a really clever way of doing it, which is air classification and it's an incredible process to watch. When whoever is collecting the bin. so, let's just say we're working with a council. We would have the street guys on the ground who would actually collect and change the bins over.

The full bins would be put into what we call our return and recycle bags. They hold a certain amount which then comes back to us and then that goes into a primary process to get it all into small sort of little chips, and then it goes through a really clever process where, if you're watching it, you've got the gum and the Gumdrop bin flying off in one direction, you've got all the other stray litters going off in another direction. So, it is incredible to watch actually.

JM: Is it based on like density and weight? It just understands..

AB: Absolutely, exactly.

JM: Wow.

AB: I was amazed when I first saw it. I think that's actually been one of the things I've most enjoyed about this journey is just the processes that I've been able to see firsthand just through, sort of the development process, the process if you like. Because some of the things that are around are just incredible.

JM: So, let's go back to the sales pitch as you're going into a community, because there must be a hidden benefit from the public—but I think one that you talk about that you state on the site—you're also reducing the cost of the waste collection from the community's perspective, right? This has to be a difficult and expensive process to actually clean something as sticky and tactile as gum from all these different places, yes?

AB: Yeah, absolutely. I think story aside, our main aim is to reduce gum litter and to produce a saving for the people that are using those Gumdrop bins, who would otherwise have to use other means of actually removing the gum from the streets. That really is our aim in the fact that actually if that money is saved, it's better spent elsewhere on communities.

And it costs—I don't know about the US, but in the UK we spend about 60 million pounds a year cleaning up gum litter, and it costs around thirty pence to one pound 50 to remove, and it only costs 3 pence to buy a piece of chewing gum. So, it's 10 times, if not more to actually remove the gum, which is a huge, huge cost. It really is our aim to be saving councils or universities, or airports money on their cleaning bills, through the Gumdrop bins.

JM: Do you think that's the biggest selling point, to them?

AB: I mean to them the product has to work. I think depending on who you are pitching to will depend on the sort of, what the benefits are. Of course, everybody's interested in money saving, but there are other benefits in terms of the story and the fact that it's linked to ESG goals. So it really depends on who the customer is and really what their aims are for having the Gumdrop bins on site.

JM: So, before we take a break, I want to go still back to the beginning because we're going to talk about more of the process and the business case after the break, but I want to stay with your design background for a moment, because it's almost like you're a behavioral science company in a certain way as well.

You're influencing behavior, you're changing behavior in these sorts of micro-communities, in these environments like an airport or community or university. But I feel like it wouldn't be as successful if you weren't leading with that type of design. Can you talk about the relationship between design and behavior? And maybe some other examples that inspired you when you were going through school, and saying like, “Yes great design can modify behavior for our benefit.”

AB: I think first off, I do think of myself as a designer, and I think we have a great responsibility as designers to produce products that—through their form and their use and their interaction with the customer or whoever is going to be using the product—we have a responsibility to make sure that that is efficient, it lasts, it has benefits towards the customer plus the environment.

So, I think there are so many interlinking themes when it comes to designing and problem-solving that it does in some essences depending on what the product is. And especially, I think with the Gumdrop bin, it hopefully will lead to behavioral change, because there are so many of those different themes interlinking in terms of the design, what we're trying to achieve with that, where the product is, what services are linked with our products.

So, all of that has been really well thought through. And it's something that is constantly changing, we're constantly questioning. How can we do things better? How can we make this better? What consumer, from which target audience or for which sector, how are they using this product? Is it right for that?

I think if you're not doing that, and you're not questioning, then you're not evolving and you're not, in my case, in Gumdrops case, working towards that ultimate aim of actually changing a habit.I think if we can change something, as small as dropping a piece of chewing gum on the ground, then actually we have a platform to change much bigger things when it comes to waste and litter in our environment.

JM: I love it. We're going to take a quick break but when we come back, we're going to dig more into the design elements, but also try to understand the business of Anna's business. We'll be right back.

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JM: Welcome back to Grow For Good™, talking to Anna Bullus from Gumdrop. We've covered a lot of ground, actually. We've talked about the model and how it started, the design aspects of it, how design influences behavior. I think we have a pretty good feel for the point, the purpose and where this kind of fits into a societal landscape. So now let's dig into the business use case a little bit. As broadly and generally as you can, tell us your business model. How is this a business and not simply a public service?

AB: So, to explain the business model, I have to explain that there are three strands to the business. We've got the Gumdrop bin side, which focuses on the collection of post-consumer waste chewing gum, and we sell memberships. We sell memberships to four different sectors: education, retail and leisure, transport, and government. And the idea there is that they can sign up for a contract using the Gumdrop bins, in order to reduce gum litter and to save them money on cleaning costs with the Gumdrop bins. So that's sort of one of the micro, if you like, business models over the overarching business.

JM: Pause, so hang on. You've actually figured out a way to get paid to source your raw material?

AB: [Laughing] It would seem so.

JM: I love that! I just want to make sure that that didn't escape me. Okay, continue, please.

AB: And then we've got the second strand which is what we call Gum-tec®, which is the overarching brand name that we've given to the materials that we create from the recycled chewing gum. We've been given the opportunity really, to work with industries. So, this focuses on pre-consumer waste, the waste coming from factories that we work with, and we take that, and we create all sorts of different compounds for various different uses. And we try and sell that back into the plastics and rubber sector as a more sustainable alternative to the rubbers and plastics that they would already be using.

And again, looking at what we're focused on, two main sectors here and that's really footwear and apparel and also automotive—three, actually. That's the second strand. And then the third strand is that we also have a consultancy side. Because of the journey that I've been through, I have learned so much about the various different processes that there are for creating closed-loop systems. Just for the process and systems that I've had to put in place for Gumdrop, I've just gained all this knowledge. And one of the things that has become apparent while working with the companies that we work with, with Gumdrop and Gum-tec® is that they have all these other waste streams and sometimes they don't know what to do with them.

So, it's great because it means that we can go in and we can say, right, actually, the process that we use for Gumdrop here, you could apply to this waste stream, to make it more efficient or to introduce closed-loop systems within your business for various different waste streams. That's the third strand and that's something that we've very recently started, but also gives us an opportunity to not just focus on gum litter, but to focus on all sorts of different waste. And again, put the design skills into play, which I absolutely love.

JM: So, before we go into talking about monetizing each end of this business, I want to go back into the second piece, sourcing the raw material is working with the providers, the communities that you would partner up with. And then the manufacturing process, you mentioned that you're also collaborating with other factories that have pre-consumer waste, taking their excess waste. Can you go into that a little bit deeper? But what actually does that mean? What kind of factories are you speaking with, and what are you alleviating for them?

AB: Yeah, one of them whilst working on a Gumdrop and finding out more about the chewing gum industry, one of the things that I quickly realized is that the chewing gum factories themselves that manufacture the chewing gum, they have a huge amount of waste that they generate each year. And that is not being recycled, and was going to various different waste outlets that perhaps are not so preferable. And really, it was an opportunity to offer the industry a sort of zero waste to landfill alternative where we could say, well hang on a second, if you're just going to sort of throw that away, we could take it for you, and we can actually produce a material.

And we can probably sell it back into this sector and the rubber and plastics industry. Which is great because we're working with huge volumes, I mean tens, even hundreds of tons of material. So, the opportunities to do really exciting projects in other sectors—which I mentioned were footwear, apparel, and automotive—become a reality because the Gumdrop bins service themselves. I think we would need one on every single street corner in the world to be able to really service the other projects that we have on at the moment to do something really meaningful with, because you need actually quite a lot. We will get there.

JM: So how do you collect the pre-consumer waste that's coming out of the factories and aggregate all of that with the post consumer waste that you're sourcing. What does that actually look like when you get it all together, I guess assembled at your plant?

AB: Yes, we treat them as two quite separate streams of material because they come in very different forms. They have to go through very different processes in order for us to get them to a point where we can actually work with them. For the chewing gum industry, we get, I mean huge one-ton bags that are massive, so we have tens and hundreds of things that we receive every year which we process. It all happens at the same plants—the post-consumer and the pre-consumer—but they come in very different forms, so we can’t treat them in the same way.

With the Gum-tec® side, with the pre-consumer that we get from factories, that might be offcuts or it might be a run that they've done as an experiment, that's gone wrong, or it produce that they've had to put to one side because the quality is not there are. There are so many different reasons why they might produce that waste and why they might not be able to put it back into the front end. So that's where we can come in and offer them a service.

JM: Okay, so. You're an entrepreneur now, you're a business owner. You are running a sourcing, production and manufacturing facility with retail on the back end. This is not a little experiment on a university campus any longer. It's a business.

So, what surprised you the most, about getting into business? What was the most challenging part of being an entrepreneur, that if you could go back and talk to your younger self getting into this, that you would say listen check this out, because you're not going to be ready for this.

AB: I think if my older self could speak to my younger self I would probably say, “Nah I can’t be bothered to do this.” [Laughing]

JM: [Laughing]

AB: [Laughing] I’m joking! So, many things. The fact that everything always takes so much longer than you think and nothing ever happens the way you imagine it to happen. That's not a bad thing, but you just have to deal with it. I think I learn something every single day, I'm still learning. I didn't set out to be an entrepreneur or run a business, it all happened really organically. And I think I've gone on this journey and I've got these aims that I'm following and I'm just like a dog with a bone, I just go at it every single day. And I just think “Right, yeah, tick, done that yes. Okay brilliant”

But yeah, I think if I could speak to my younger self I’d just say you've got to have patience, you've got to persevere, you've got to take the rough with the smooth, got to take the highs with the lows. There are days when I wake up and I think, “You are completely mad. What are you doing with your life?” But then there are days that I. When I wake up and I think, “This is, this is amazing. I'm loving every second of the journey.” And I think maybe that's what being an entrepreneur is. You're on this crazy journey and you’ve just got to take each day as it comes.

JM: So, tell us about the output. Tell us about the—brag about your product line a little bit.

AB: We've currently got—we've got over 1000 locations across the UK, where the Gumdrop bin memberships are growing all the time, which I'm really proud of. All of our customers are saving more than the actual cost of the contract, which is one of our biggest aims as well, and we're now starting to look at other countries for the Gumdrop bins. So, we're running some trials in New Zealand, we've done Australia, we've done some parts of Europe. We're desperate to get to the US!

JM: Well, come on over!

ABs: Yes, please. I really would love to.

JM: I'm hung up on New Zealand. I just have this feeling that they just don't litter. I don't know why I feel that, I haven't been there. But I have this feeling that they're just better people.

AB: [Laughing] They're very conscious, aren't they? They have this beautiful scenery which I think they just keep beautiful. Yeah, we're slowly expanding which is fantastic. And we have recycled, I mean tons and tons of waste chewing gum. We're saving over a million pounds in cleaning costs across our contracts in the UK and we're just continuing to grow every single day, and I think that's what I'm most proud of, especially during these times as well. That we're still here. And as well, with the products, we've got some really exciting projects coming out this year. I can't talk too much about them, but they are in footwear and I am so excited.

JM: What was the automotive used case you mentioned before?

AB: Again, I can’t—annoyingly, I can't talk too much about it. But we have a pipeline of development projects. And we're looking at some parts of cars, looking at car mats or trinkets. You know when you shut your door and it has that really nice like, “clunk” sound?

JM: Sure!

AB: So, the padding that's inside the door makes that really nice sound. So, we're looking at various different applications. Some that you can see, some that you can’t see, which really aren’t sexy at all. But the volumes are there which is great for us. And also—

JM: Does this mean that all the car door liners from this point forward are going to be pink?

AB: Wouldn’t that be great?

JM: That would be cool. That would be pretty cool.

ABs: Who knows? That's the aim anyway! And then footwear and apparel, we've got a lot of projects happening in this area, we’ve got a lot of new products in terms of materials, the Gum-tec® materials that we've been working on for the last 6–18 months, which hopefully should come to fruition.

JM: So, Anna, are these your products? Or are you the supplier, or you the raw material supplier at that point for other people's product line? Is it a collaboration, a partnership? Or will you actually bring your own products to market?

AB: So, a lot of the time—we do have a collection of our own products that we sell. So, we've got the Americano Mug. We did a lot of stationary, more sort of promotional products that we sell back into the companies that we work with the Gumdrop bins, or to separate customers as well.

But with the Gum-tec® and the pre-consumer, they tend to be much larger volumes. We tend to work in collaboration with brands that have existing products, who want to replace either a plastic or a rubber that they've been using with a more sustainable material, which is why they're using Gum-tec® with the story as well. So that's, that's something that we've really started to focus on and these are some of the projects which will launch later this year.

JM: So, you know, I think one of the most difficult things with Gumdrop is to try and actually put you in a box which I don't want to do—that's not necessarily to say Gumdrop is a, “blank.” But when you think about it, are you an OEM, are you in the retail space, are you a supplier, a distributor, an environmental company How do you frame it to people when they say, “Hey, Anna, what do you do for a living?”

AB: I think we innovate. That's what I like to think we do. And it's very material based. So, if I were to put Gumdrop in a box, I would say it was an innovation of materials using waste, and we specialize in chewing gum waste. [Laughing]

Jed Morey: Can you ever? Do you ever sit back and be like, “How is this my life? How did I get here?”

AB: Yes. Everyday. [Laughing]

JM: [Laughing] It's so great. It's so great. So, as we wrap up, can you tell folks where they can learn more about Gumdrop, or if there are communities or universities or airports or hospitals or any sort of constituency out there, how can they get in touch with your company to see if they can create one of these programs?

AB: You can also go to our website which is Gumdropltd.com, and there's lots of information on there and various different access to materials of how you can get involved. I think if you're US-based, we always want to hear from you if you're interested, email us, because the more emails we get, the quicker we're going to get over there, so definitely get in touch.

We also sell our products online. So, we've got the Gumdrops on the go, which are portable Gumdrop bins and we sell those everywhere, all around the world. So, you can definitely get involved by using some of our products that we sell online. But at the end of the day if you want more information just get in touch because always happy to hear from people!

JM: Alright, and when the travel restrictions are lifted and if I am lucky enough to fly into Heathrow to go visit my goddaughter over in London. Will I see these bins?

AB: Absolutely, we have them at Heathrow, we have them at Luton, we have an initiative at Gatwick and then we have some with a lot of smaller ones, but you probably won’t fly there, and you’d fly there if you were sort of flying in between or around the UK. So yes, definitely keep your eyes peeled and you might see a pink bubble Gumdrop somewhere.

JM: I will keep my eyes peeled for that, absolutely. And listeners in the United States, come on, let's get Anna stateside, let's bring her over. Let's bring Gumdrop here and start cleaning things up—unless it really is holding all of our roads and sidewalks together which is entirely possible. Give us a minute to take care of our infrastructure and then we'll call you over, is that okay?

AB: Yeah, do that quite quickly! I'll be really, really pleased. [Laughing]

JM: Terrific. Anna thank you so much for giving us your time and your insight today. We appreciate having you on.

AB: Absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me!

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