Data collected by Anglian Water has revealed that people across the East of England wrongly disposed of 3,047 tonnes of unflushable items last year causing avoidable blockages and risk to the region’s precious environment.

The giant mound of rubbish – largely made up of wet wipes, cotton buds and sanitary items – has been filtered out by the water company’s Water Recycling Centres over the past year and is equivalent to the weight of around 30 blue whales.

The data comes as the annual awareness campaign Unblocktober begins this month – something that Anglian Water has been supporting since 2019.

The campaign is aimed at improving the country’s drains, sewers, watercourses and seas by educating members of the public on what not to put down their drains.

Connor Brailsford, Network Protection Manager from Anglian Water said:

“We care passionately about protecting the environment, which is why we’re supporting awareness campaigns like Unblocktober and helping make our customers aware of what can and can’t be flushed or put down the drain.

“This data shows just how much unflushable material is filtered out of our wastewater and removed at our Water Recycling Centres each year – but unfortunately, not all of it makes it that far.

“We have more than 76,000km of sewer pipe in our region. That’s enough to go around the world twice. Wet wipes are the most common cause of problems in the sewer and are by far the worst culprit. But things like tampons, cotton buds and cooking fats also cause problems.

“Eighty per cent of flooding and pollution incidents are caused by blocked sewers. Most of these blockages are entirely preventable, but instead can lead to devastating sewage spills, harming our precious environment.”

Last year, the water company cleared over 40,000 blockages caused by wrongly flushed items as well as build ups of fats, oils and greases, which costs the company around £19 million a year to remove. Clearing these blockages is essential to helping protect the environment from potential sewer spills resulting in avoidable pollutions.

Avoidable blockages are one of the main causes of pollution and significantly contribute to spills from storm overflows because they reduce the capacity of the sewer network. To help combat the issue, earlier this year, Anglian Water began work to install around 22,000 new monitors on its sewer network with the aim of preventing these avoidable blockages by finding them sooner.