In the English village of Fleckney, near Leicester, roadwork had begun at the start of March for underground cable-fault repairs, when an unrelated leaking water main was discovered in the same spot. For the two months that followed, a large, now-flooded hole remained, sticking out like a broken egg to villagers growing increasingly annoyed with the sluggish pace of the repairs.

In an act of protest, a resident, who chooses to remain anonymous, placed two plastic ducks onto Fleckney’s newest artificial pond, hoping to draw attention to the matter. Photos of the plastic pair quickly appeared on the village’s community Facebook page – with residents quipping that ducklings would join the parents sooner than the repairs would finish. As it turns out, Plasteurope.com learned later, the resident has a plastics company of their own. 

Mere days after the BBC reported on the incident, the lucky-duck villagers found that the plan they hatched had worked, and that local water firm Severn Trent had finally made the hole whole again. Having brought about a solution, the floating pair of quackers gave new meaning to rubber duck debugging – or in this case, plastic duck debugging, shall we say.