UNDERWEAR, toys, cutlery, traffic cones and shopping trolleys are just some of the bizarre items which have been blocking drains and sewers in Worcester.

Other more common items Severn Trent Water has found causing blockages in the city include cotton buds, condoms, nappies, razor blades and plasters.

The water company, which services Worcestershire and Herefordshire, spends more than £10 million a year cleaning over 700 kilometres of sewers and clearing nearly 22,000 sewer blockages – a cost which is passed on to the customer. Nearly half of sewer blockages come from cleansing wipes and sanitary products and a further 20 per cent of blockages are caused by fat, oil and grease.

A spokesman for Severn Trent said: “Every so often we find a few items that leave even us scratching our heads.

“In Worcester itself we’ve found underwear – all shapes and sizes. These can be a particular problem as the elastic wraps around the pumps which push the waste water to our treatment works, which can cause them to back up “We find toys, from toy soldiers to dolls and small cars. They could be potty training mishaps or a little lost toy which has been washed into a storm drain.

“We’ve also found large items such as road traffic cones, planks of wood and shopping trolleys.”

Recently workers had some trouble removing a fork from a sewer in the city.

The spokesman said: “You wouldn’t think cutlery could cause such commotion. Most blockages can be cleared by sending a high-powered stream of water down the sewer to break it up, but when that didn’t work they sent a CCTV camera down to investigate.

“A fork had gotten stuck vertically in the sewer with the prongs wedged tight into a joint in the pipe. Workers had to send special equipment down the length of the sewer to cut the prongs off of the fork so that they could get it out further down the line.

“The last big problem is fat, oil and grease. It’s easy to assume that the warm grease left in a pan would be OK to dump down the sink. But eventually the fat and grease will cool and solidify.”

Severn Trent is warning people not to flush anything other than loo roll and human waste down their toilets.

Anything that gets stuck in the drain running from a home until it connects to the water company’s sewer is the homeowner’s responsibility to repair and maintain.

Unblocking, repairing, or replacing the waste pipe can be costly.

For more information visit stwater.co.uk.