Southern Water has discovered dozens of households and business premises across the region have been sending their waste directly into surface water drains instead of sewers.

The company's special Misconnections Investigation Team says 'careless' developers and tradespeople can wrongly connect home or workplace waste pipes straight into drains designed for surface water only, instead of wastewater being carried away to wastewater treatment works.

By identifying these 60 properties over the last 12 months with incorrect plumbing, the team has prevented millions of litres of raw sewage from entering our environment this year - which Southern Water has itself been criticised for.

In total, the team found 265 individual issues, involving problem toilets, showers, hand basins, dishwashers, washing machines, baths, and kitchen sinks.

Most of the properties were fixed by their owner after they were made aware, but in some cases, Southern Water had to step in to take direct action – particularly when the connection was located off property boundaries.

Over the past year, in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight 19 misconnected properties were identified, in Kent 33, and in Sussex eight.

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Since January 2019, when the team was set up, 224 misconnected properties have been found, with 739 individual problems, including more than 100 offending toilets.

As a result, more than seven million litres of household waste have been removed from the environment. A single toilet can discharge more than 20,000 litres a year.

Rob Butson, misconnections manager at Southern Water, said: “When the team started work, the only way to track misconnections was by placing cages in drains to look for evidence of toilet paper. But the teams are now issued with electronic ‘Fluidion’ testing devices which measure telltale chemical traces of wrongly connected facilities allowing more to be found and investigations to be quicker.

“Bringing new technology to the task of tracking down these sources of pollution is truly game-changing. Each time a connection is rerouted, pollution is instantly cut improving bathing water quality and protecting wildlife and habitats.”

Southern Water says this activity is just one part of its ongoing efforts to enhance and protect the environment.

It has pledged £2billion between 2020 and 2025 (around £1,000 per household) to improve its performance, with much of that being spent on the wastewater network.

Bosses have also committed to reducing pollution by up to 40 per cent this year, and by 80 per cent over the next three years, in addition to looking at 'innovative' nature-based and engineering solutions to the UK’s reliance on storm overflows.