X-Factor CD among items flushed down toilet (From York Press)

X-Factor CD among items flushed down toilet

8:40am Friday 30th December 2011 in News By Mike Laycock , Chief reporter

Yorkshire Water’s Matt Thompson with some of the unwanted gifts which have arrived at the company’s treatment works over the Christmas period

THE Christmas single by X-Factor winners Little Mix appears to have proved such an unwelcome gift for one York person that they flushed it down the toilet!

Yorkshire Water’s sewage works have been receiving a steady trickle of seemingly unwanted gifts since Christmas, including an assortment of cuddly toys, pieces of Lego, novelty socks and Little Mix’s Cannonball CD single, which turned up at York’s sewage works at Naburn.

A number of small Christmas trees have also been turning up, their tinsel decorations often replaced with less appealing loo paper as a result of their journey to the works.

The trees are thought to have been discarded down manholes as some owners set about their post-Christmas tidy-up.

Hundreds of litres of turkey fat have also entered the treatment works after being poured down the kitchen sink, with many more litres likely to still be in the sewers, hardening and potentially forming blockages which can lead to people’s homes being flooded. The company began deploying fat-busting bacillus bacteria down its sewers at 180 fat hotspots across the region to tackle the festive turkey fat problem.

Matt Thompson, a spokesman for Yorkshire Water, said it was becoming increasingly concerned by the actions of a small minority of customers who treated the sewers like a rubbish bin.

He said: “Just because you don’t want Little Mix’s record or those socks that grandma has lovingly knitted for you, it doesn’t mean that we do.

“While we’re no longer surprised to see unwanted presents coming into our treatment works, it’s always disappointing, particularly as we work so hard to educate people on the dangers of using our sewers as a giant rubbish bin.

“Our message is simple: anything other than human waste and loo roll has no business in our sewers and we’d ask people to do the right thing and make sure they dispose of their rubbish in the correct way, rather than risk blocking our sewers and potentially flooding their own homes with sewage.”