YOU can freeze it, smash it, soak it in acid and blast it with a water cannon but it'll still stick around - why use superglue when chewing gum will do? The stickiest of sticky problems is under the spotlight again as East Lancashire MP Peter Pike vows to get tough on grime and clean up our streets. But can we ever really get rid of the grey mess covering our pavements? Reporter AMY BINNS found out.

ANYWHERE you go in East Lancashire, you can see the same strange markings - blobs dotting the pavement like tiny, granite-hard pancakes.

They are worst in town centres, covering the ground outside fast-food outlets, but they can be seen everywhere and they seem to be multiplying.

Many people don't realise it's discarded chewing gum which, once it's trodden into the pavement, is there for years. Street cleaners agree its one of the hardest things to get rid of, so the mess goes on building up.

In Blackburn, council workers have tried blasting it with high-pressure solvents, while Hyndburn council staff try to freeze it with chemicals then chip it off with special tools.

Scientists at the University of Manchester are experimenting with zapping it with lasers and patents are out on machines to jet out sub-zero high-pressure carbon dioxide. But all methods have the same two basic flaws - they cost a fortune and they don't really work.

A two-street trial of special machinery in Blackburn town centre cost £3,500 - enough to conventionally clean a whole district for months. A Hyndburn council spokesman has estimated the cost of ridding the whole borough of spat-out gum at £275,000, the equivalent of £3 from every man, woman and child in the borough.

He said: "We do the worst patches but a lot gets left because it's not cost effective.

"And whatever you do, it leaves a stain." But it isn't just chewing gum on the floor which causes problems.

Laura Hodgson, 16, of Accrington, a student at Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School, tells a familiar tale involving gum stuck on a seat.

She had to cut her long, blonde hair after getting gum stuck in it after it was left on a bus seat.

She said: "It was an awful mess and my hair got all matted.

"I had to wait until I got home to cut it out.

"It was absolutely disgusting and I have got my hair a lot shorter now as a result."

Last week in the House of Commons, Burnley MP Peter Pike suggested two solutions: making a biodegradable gum that would be easy to clean off and stopping people dropping it in the first place.

But although Tidy Britain Group director general Professor Graham Ashworth, of Samlesbury, helped develop a biodegradable gum in 1998, it's unlikely to be sold for years.

He said: "The development of a biodegradable gum is just one of the initiatives we have been looking at.

"However, until such time as it becomes available to customers our firm belief is the best way to keep chewing gum off our streets is for people not to drop it there in the first place."

A spokeswoman for manufacturers Wrigley's, which is doing more research into it, said: "We have produced biodegradable gum but it tastes awful. "We are working on it but it's not going to be put on the market for a long time."

Which only leaves the second idea - stopping people spitting out gum in the street.

Peter Pike said: "This is a disgusting habit. It is a problem everywhere you go.

"Every MP gets a lot of letters from constituents about chewing gum along with litter and dogs fouling pavements. It costs a lot of public money to clear up chewing gum and other litter and that money could be saved if people were more careful."

Wrigley's agree with him and are planning a nationwide campaign in September, including teaching material on good citizenship to be sent to every school. The company is also sponsoring a new Scout badge to include the problems of litter.

But if it's a difficult problem, we should bear in mind that it's all of our own making.

The Wrigley's spokeswoman said: "Chewing gum is very common in the States and many other countries but this only seems to be a problem here.

"Perhaps people here don't consider gum to be litter."

Picture shows student Laura Hodgson struggling with the stick menace in Blackburn. Her shorter hairstyle resulted from as tangle with some chewing gum.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.