Water company United Utilities is launching a campaign with Origin urging people not to flush the wrong things down the toilet and kitchen sink.

The campaign, which features the line "What gets flushed might come back to haunt you", is the utilities firm's response to the 15,000 sewer blockages it has to clear each year.

It says 70 percent of these blockages, which cost the company £4m a year to remove, are avoidable and the result of manufacturers wrongly endorsing products such as cooking oils as flushable.

The 'what not to flush' campaign aims to educate people about the issue, raise awareness of the items which most commonly cause the problems and highlight the consequences – more than seven thousand homes and gardens are flooded with sewage every year.

Cheshire agency Origin has designed a "sewer monster" character to front the campaign, which encompasses outdoor media, online and print materials.

Puppet makers MacKinnon and Saunders - known for creations for Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, Pingu and Bob the Builder - helped bring the monster character to life.

Mark Bottomley, managing director at Origin, said the campaign - and in particular the sewer monster at the heart of it  - represents a "brave step" for United Utilities.

He said: “Whilst this is an important issue, it is one that many people would find difficult to engage with. For that reason we have created the sewer monster which appears out of the toilet swathed in the things that shouldn’t have been flushed in the first place. In other posters he comes crawling out of the sink. 

"He’s not very pleasant, but communicates the message very effectively.  It’s a brave step for United Utilities to take such a creative approach but, to achieve their objectives, we needed something that would capture the public’s imagination.”

Origin has also created a game for the United Utilities website which challenges players to stop the sewer monster appearing by catching items that should not go down the drain.