Chewing gum: A historic product, born vegetable and become a mix of chemistry little friendly to the environment

The earliest historical traces of chewing gum date back to the Maya, who were used to chewing rubber balls called Chicles, taken from a plant called Manilkara Chicle.

Subsequently, other traces were found, in more recent times, attributed to the general and president of Mexico, Antonio Lopez de Santa Maria, called the Napoleon of the West, ( February 21, 1794 – Mexico City, June 21, 1876) military and long-time politician, who would be attributed to the invention of modern chewing gum.

But if we talk about certain data, about the origin of the product, we must then refer to the patent filed by William Semple on December 28, 1869 in the United States.

A recipe put on the market two years later that did not excite customers too much because, the balls, were tasteless and soft.

But on the basis of these failures, Semple modified the recipe several times, inserting aromas and working on the consistency of the rubber, managing to increase interest in the product towards the end of the decade of the century.

During the 20th century the industry radically changed the recipe, using no longer a natural rubber but a synthetic, the Polyisobutilene, relegating the processing of the Chicle to a niche market.

Subsequently, work was done on the elastic properties of the product by inserting additives, thus reaching the desired viscosity through the addition of a Xanthano rubber.

In fact, the Army Staff had included in the so-called “Ration K”, a mix of foods that each soldier had with him on the battlefield, chewing gum for various reasons.

Chewing gum, also supplemented with caffeine, was thought to help soldiers better withstand fighting tensions, and also facilitated the cleaning of the oral cavity in situations where soldiers could not brush their teeth.

But how is chewing gum produced today?

The dough that makes up the chewing gum contains the Polyisobutilene, as a base compound, then sugar additives and aromas. Poliisobutilene, or PIB, is a synthetic rubber, derived from the curing of Isobutilene and a small part (2%) isoprene, produced by Basf for food use.

Polyisobutilene is a vinyl polymer and, structurally, resembles the common Polypropylene Homopolymer and Polyethylene, except that every other carbon atom is replaced with two methyl groups. It has two important features that are high waterproofness and excellent flexibility.

How is chewing gum used?

The most common use can be said to have been, for many years, comparable to that of candy, enjoying during the chewing of the gum of the aromas that were inside the product. But over the years, chewing gum has also had a medical and pharmaceutical use.

In fact, there are numerous drugs on the market, in this form, that cure nausea, headaches, addiction to smoking, some diseases of the oral cavity and in the form of dietary supplements of the most disparate types.

But chewing gum has found itself a bad friend to the environment, as it takes at least 5 years to decompose, sticking to the surfaces on which it is placed, especially the sidewalks in the cities.

Cleaning the pedestrianised surfaces on which it is attached involves the use of chemicals, suitable to stop the solidization between rubber and walking surface, water with high potential jet and, where these systems do not get the desired results, you have to mill the surface to remove the black spots composed of the tires.

Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.