TONNES of hospital waste found at the side of a road was dumped from a stolen lorry, it emerged last night.

Hundreds of yellow bags of waste, which included human excrement, blood, dressings and used nappies were discovered in Hulver Road, Beccles, close to the town’s old airfield.

The Environment Agency (EA), which is carrying out an inquiry into the incident, is now looking to find out who was responsible.

Last night both Ipswich Hospital and West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds told the EADT that it was unlikely the waste had come from them.

A spokeswoman for the EA said: “The waste was dumped from a lorry that was stolen from a company based in Lowestoft.

“The company is currently in the process of recovering the lorry from a site in Lowestoft.

“We have started an investigation along with the police to try to find those responsible for dumping the waste.”

The spokeswoman added that inquiries were also attempting to trace the source of the waste, which was found on Friday. She added: “It may be one load from a hospital or collections from various ones. We are still looking into that at the minute. We know that it is hospital waste by the way it is bagged up.”

A spokeswoman for Ipswich Hospital said it was highly unlikely that the waste had come from the site.

She said: “We have not have been alerted to the fact that any waste has been stolen or reported missing from the hospital.

“We incinerate all our waste on the site here and do not transport it long distances.” A spokesman for West Suffolk Hospital said the hospital knew nothing about the incident and added that the bags should have tags on them to say which hospital they came from.

The waste has since been cleaned up by Waveney District Council. Anyone with information on the incident can contact the EA in confidence on 0800 807060.