Sex toys, a scooter and sheets of counterfeit money were some of the more unusual items found in the East of England's sewers this year.

Anglian Water engineers claim to have cleared around 40,000 "preventable blockages" from the region's sewer network in the last 12 months, encountering "strange" items such as building equipment and a television.

Other "bewildering" finds have included car tyres and a full set of pristine car mats.

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Clearing the blockages costs the company around £19million a year, according to the firm, with wet wipes and sanitary products making up around 75pc of the worst issues.

Regan Harris from Anglian Water said: "We have enough sewer pipe in our region to go around the world twice, meaning our engineers remove an avoidable blockage nearly every five minutes.

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“Wet wipes cause real problems in our network. These blockages lead to around eighty per cent of flooding and pollution incidents in our region yet are completely preventable.

"Although some of the things we find down the sewer can be comical, we urge everyone to not put anything down the toilet other than pee, poo and toilet paper.

"You wouldn't use your bin as a toilet, so please don't use your toilet as a bin."