Members of the public had to be evacuated from a tip in Norwich after a hand grenade and other munitions were discovered in a box of discarded items.Police, firefighters and bomb disposal experts were called to the household waste recycling centre in Swanton Road at about 1.30pm.

The public had to be evacuated from a waste tip in Norwich after a hand grenade and other munitions were discovered in a box of discarded items.

Police, firefighters and bomb disposal experts were called to the household waste recycling centre in Swanton Road at about 1.30pm yesterday.

The centre was full at the time and the building was emptied as a 600m exclusion zone was enforced.

David Puck, from the Waste Recycling Group, made the discovery. Mr Puck, a former soldier, knew immediately what he was dealing with but warned that if the items had not been identified so quickly the incident could have been far more serious.

He said: "Another member of staff brought the box over to me because they recognised it as a suspect package. I looked inside and found what looked like a German stick hand grenade, rounds of machine gun ammunition and about 15 shells.

"It was impossible to tell whether or not they were live but you don't take risks when dealing with explosives.

"Whoever brought the box in obviously knew what was in it and was highly irresponsible. It had been left in the metals area and if it had gone into our machine the whole place could have gone up."

The bomb disposal team from Colchester stayed at the site until the early evening making the area safe. Police will now study CCTV footage to work out who left the items and will consider what action should be taken.

Mr Puck said "This should act as a reminder that people need to be careful when deciding what to leave here."