Positive And Negative Impacts Of Chewing Gum On The Planet Earth

The planet is filled with diverse matter. Everything that is on Earth has an origin. Throughout time Earth has evolved and soon later organisms have evolved from it. Even humans can create a story for anything, for example chewing gum. Chewing gum is gum that is intended to be chewed and essentially flavored, it is usually sold in a pack and each piece is wrapped with thin paper.

Chewing gum has a background like everything else and it might not seem much but even the smallest things on Earth can make a huge difference in society. There’s positive and negative to chewing gum but if nobody evolved the early form of gum, the world can be a whole different place. Chewing gum has created itself to become a necessity due to the benefits of chewing it.

The starting point to everything is the Big Bang, which happened 13.8 billion years ago. The Big Bang created time, matter, energy and gravity basically anything that is on this planet is connected to the Big Bang. Chewing gum or anything wouldn’t exist if the Big Bang never exploded and created the universe. When hydrogen and helium were pulled together by gravity and denser clouds start to create a stronger pull. When it reached 10 million degrees to fusion starts to happen and a star is born. Then in a star’s life when it converts to a supernova and explodes chemical elements are created (Big History), which is where the chemical element in gum is found.

Earth, in the beginning, was a hot ball but before it was rocks clumping together until it reached a certain size. Earth is a rocky planet due to the sun’s stellar wind that most gases off of Earth. When Earth eventually cooled it allowed water vapor to convert into liquid and allowed the planet to have bodies of water. Over time bacteria formed in the water and eventually start to expand on to land. This is significant because if Earth never formed and cooled than bacteria would have never formed and humans would never evolve from it. The evolution of Homo sapiens is important to chewing gum, even though there was a natural form of gum but no one would have created a modern version. The first organism formed approximately 4 billion years ago in the ocean. When the first single-celled organism formed over 2.1 billion years ago it ate the chemicals in the water.

The first single cell organism is known as Prokaryotes. Prokaryotes started to use the sun to make food not only did it allow more oxygen the atmosphere through the process of photosynthesis but prokaryotes evolved into Eukaryotes and it happened between 1.6 and 2 billion years ago. Eukaryotes created sex and impact the plant because it made the world more diverse due to genes getting mixed together with more. It is significant to chewing gum because when humans evolve collective learning started to build and without it chewing gum may not be the same (Big History).

Humans are Homo sapiens but they were Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Neanderthal before evolving to Homo sapiens. As homo sapiens they were able to share knowledge and build on them, this is called collective learning. Collective learning is important because humans are able to expand their knowledge and create new ideas. With chicle used as gum in ancient times, humans were able to use it and make it something bigger. Foraging played a big part in the beginning because that's what humans did, they foraged to survive because unlike us they didn’t have supermarkets, so they were nomadic and keep moving to look for food. Foraging connects with collective learning because when they travel in groups and encounter with other groups they are able to share knowledge and trade people (Big History)

However, over time human stopped foraging end switch to agriculture. Agriculture started 11000 years ago, with agriculture humans were able to get food from one place and it allowed them to stay in one place permanently. Agriculture also allowed people to farm more foods than they need, so they could do other jobs. Also, agriculture allowed humans to create a civilization and led the world to globalization. Globalization is the interconnection of the world that began at about 1500 CE and has accelerated since the 1800s.

Globalization is important because humans began trading with others all around the world. For example, the silk roads allowed other places to gain certain material need to help themselves survive. The Silk Roads was a system that transferred goods, people, and ideas through Asia and the Mediterranean. It is significant because trading with others all humans to obtain materials. Humans didn’t just trade, they also exchanged. For example. the Columbian Exchange, moved livestock, plants, and disease between the old world and the new world. This is significant because in modern gum some recipes require sugar and without sugarcane being exchanged from the old world to the new world then who knows if modern chewing gum would even exist and would it be the same (Big History).

Ancient Greeks were most likely the first gum chewer and “they chewed resin from the lentisk, or the mastic tree” (Schnakenberg). However, the Mayans chewed chicle during the same period of the ancient Greeks (Schnakenberg). In the past humans have been chewing on natural substance as chewing gum but as time past humans were also able to develop a butadiene-based synthetic rubber type of gum without using chicle as the base. (“Chewing Gum - 100,000 Tonnes of Plastic Pollution Every Year.”). This is significant because over the span of time many ideas and objects were able to evolve a substance into a more complex item that makes humans have the need to have possession of it.

Thomas Adams was an American photographer, who created a substitute for chewing tobacco in 1870, which is known as chewing gum (“Chewing Gum.”). William Wrigley Jr. originally sold soap with a gift of gum but then people just wanted the gum, not the soap (Craft, Donna, and Quick). When he started to sell just gum he convinced the military that chewing gum as an essential and soon later his company profits went up (Baughman). “Walter Diemer (c.1904-1998,) an accountant for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was experimenting with new gum recipes when he hit upon the bubble gum formula by accident” (Schnakenberg). All these people are signifacant because they contributed to the evolution of gum.

Chewing gum may not seem like it causes pollution. “It is estimated that in 5 years, over 1 million tonnes of chewing gum will be produced” and an example is “374 trillion sticks of gum is approximately the weight of 100,000 tonnes” (“Chewing Gum - 100,000 Tonnes of Plastic Pollution Every Year.”). Gum nowadays are not biodegradable (Thomas) and chewing gum that is not natural are basically “malleable plastic” (“Chewing Gum - 100,000 Tonnes of Plastic Pollution Every Year.”). This is all significant because the world is not a trash can, its home. Every wrapper and piece of gum can change the way we live. It will affect the planet because it will increase global warming. Time is going to pass and the number of waste is going to increase. Humans are the reason for this, humans take advantage of what they have but when the planet is inhabitable it is going to make everyone regret every piece of trash on the floor that they did not clean or pick up because when the planet is gone their gone.

There are positive and negative ways that chewing gum impact a human’s health. A positive way that chewing gum helps the human health is after consuming food and chewing a piece of gum will help the salivary flow “neutralize and wash away the acids that are produced when food is broken down by the bacteria in the plaque on the teeth” ( “Chewing Gum”). Another positive effect is that chewing sugarless gum can strengthen your teeth ( “Chewing Gum”). According to Oral Health Topics ( “Chewing Gum”) also chewing sugarless gum for 20 minutes after a meal can reduce the chances of tooth decay.

These are significant because one piece of gum can make a huge difference in a human’s oral health and help prevent so many oral health problems. There is also a downside to chewing gum. “Chewing gum can cause jaw muscle imbalance” (“6 Disturbing Side Effects of Chewing Gum.”). This is significant because if a human overuses a muscle it can lead to pain and aches (“6 Disturbing Side Effects of Chewing Gum.”). Another negative effect is that chewing gum can cause gastrointestinal problems. It causes gastrointestinal problems because when a person chews gum it causes the person to swallow air and that can increase abdominal pain and can cause bloating. This is relevant because the extra air the human body that has been inhaled starts the enzymes and acids, but since the human body is not consuming food, the body just digests the enzymes and acids that have been released.

In conclusion, chewing gum has evolved over time and it has helped and created problems on this planet. Chewing gum was from just natural substance but as time progress it becomes non-biodegradable and most chewing gum are basically synthetic rubber. Humans have been able to envolve gum from one substance to a complex substance. They created it and everyone who uses it takes advantage of it and the results end up hurting the planet and their health. The future of gum is unsure but in the future, someone could create a gum that is biodegradable and taste the same. In the future, there could be no wrappers to help reduce litter. Chewing gum sets an example for change because of its evolution, shows people that anyone can change the way something is, to make it better.