A gruesome sight awaited visitors to Gyllyngvase beach in Falmouth yesterday (8/9) as part of the latest push to clean up Cornwall's coast.

Wallace the wet wipe monster, a large inflatable covered in sanitary products, was on the beach for a joint campaign between South West Water and the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) to prevent people from flushing their wipes down the toilet.

Dr Laura Foster, head of pollution at MCS, said: "It has been really great. We have had a lot of locals and tourists come and find out what Wallace is about, and why we have an inflatable wet wipe monster on the beach. So we can talk about this issue of putting a lot of things down the toilet that shouldn't go down the toilet."

MCS has said that the number of wet wipes found on UK beaches have increased by 400 per cent over the last decade and there are now about 50 of the little squares found on every kilometre of coastline cleaned by the charity’s volunteers during just one weekend.

The group has warned that no wet wipes should be put down the pan, as even those described as flushable or dispersible can cause blockages because they don’t meet the water industry standard allowing them to be flushed.

Last August, South West Water launched its Love Your Loo campaign to encourage customers only to flush the "three Ps – pee, paper and poo," and earlier this year MCS launched its Wet Wipes Turn Nasty When You Flush Them campaign to highlight the issue and encourage people to sign the charity’s petition for clearer labelling on all wipes packaging.

Alan Hyde from South West Water said: "It has gone really well, South West Water are really pleased to team up with MCS because wet wipes are a big problem.

"We have been running the Love Your Loo campaign for the last twelve months, and Falmouth was one of the high priority areas for that campaign and is already showing encouraging results in terms of reported blockages."