HAZARDOUS waste including oil and plastics have been dredged from a town's flood defences with environmental teams calling for the public to take littering more seriously.

A Darlington-based recycling company was called in help the Environment Agency clear a Middlesbrough beck being taken over by "a mass" of harmful debris and green waste.

The flood defences, in Ormesby, had become a point where plastics and other materials had been gathering for some time, with much of the waste being dumped in or near the water by members of the public, creating an increased flood risk.

Andy Dobson, operations director of Total Recycling Services, said: “The bigger problem for the local environment is that oil has been retained within the waste and that can have a devastating effect on the local ecosystem and the wildlife living within it.

“This has occurred because public waste and plastics have not been disposed of correctly.

“I urge people to change their mindset when it comes to waste. It isn’t the waste industry that is causing these issues, it ultimately comes down to people realising the effect of littering and using the correct disposal methods."

He added: "As part of the Environment Agency’s regular clearance of urban waterways, they have come across a large mass of mainly plastics and green waste discarded in the water.

"The reason for contacting us is the addition of quite a significant amount of oil in the mix, which as a result, the entire mass had to be removed as hazardous waste."

The Environment Agency confirmed the plastic rubbish cleared from Ormesby Beck could have blocked outfalls and restricted the flow of water

Andrew Foster, a spokesman for the Environment Agency, said: “This type of clean-up event helps to support our teams, who work hard behind the scenes to reduce flood risk to homes and businesses across the region every day.

“It also helps meet the aspirations of Defra’s 25-year plan to minimise the waste we’re all producing to improve the environment in which we live and work.

"We can all make small differences to help tackle the plastics problem, for example swapping single-use plastic water bottles and bags for re-usable ones to help to stop plastic rubbish ending up in our rivers and seas.”