United Utilities on the toys which have been flushed away

And while Buzz Lightyear may have gone to ‘infinity and beyond’ to save his pals, here in the North West it could be Andrew Bromley and David Cavill from United Utilities who end up ‘rescuing’ toys that are unfortunate enough to have been flushed away.

Andrew from Bolton and David from Wigan operate jet vac units – the giant flushing and suction machines that are used for everything from clearing out a blocked drain to emptying a giant underground tank.

Dave and Andy

Andrew is based at Bolton Wastewater Treatment Works and David is at Blackburn Wastewater Treatment Works.

Over the years they have found all sorts of weird and wonderful things that have been flushed down the loo – and toys are amongst the most common. Laa Laa from the Teletubbies, Skye and Marshall from Paw Patrol and even superheroes Batman and Spiderman have all ended up in the region’s sewers.

Andrew explained: “There’s a squad of us operating these units across the North West and the jobs we carry out range in size, some days it’s a blocked drain, the next day we could be deep underground cleaning out a tank that’s the size of a football pitch. No two days are the same.

“There were nearly 18 ,000 blockages on the sewer network last year and more than half were caused by products which had been flushed. Blockages are usually caused by products such as wet wipes and cooking fats oils and grease - but over the years, we’ve discovered a wide selection of toys in the sewer system.

“I imagine it is young children dropping them down the loo without realising that they will be lost forever.”

As well as causing blockages in the sewer network, mis-flushed items can also cause blocked pipes and flooding in homes.

Customers are reminded t to only flush the 3Ps – pee, poo and paper down the loo.

Tips and advice on n how to avoid blockages in toilets, pipes and drains can be found on United Utilities website.