Your wastewater

We are responsible for the management and operation of the sewer network, sewage pumping stations, waste water treatment works and the discharge of treated effluent into the environment.

The South West is a sparsely populated region with 30% of the UK coastline but only 3% of its population and this can present some unique challenges. 

In order to take away and treat sewerage from the isolated coastal and moorland towns, we must maintain 15,570km of public sewers and operate over 640 sewage treatment works, processing an average of 585 megalitres (129 million gallons) of sewage every day.

We understand the importance of our environment for both tourism and quality of life for our residents so over the last 20 years we have invested more than £2billion to transform bathing water quality across the region, stopping over 200 raw sewage discharges and introducing modern sewage treatment processes in the biggest environmental programme of its kind in Europe.

Every year, we clear up to 8,500 blockages in our sewers, at a cost to both us and our customers of around £4million - a year. Around 21% of these are caused by people flushing baby wipes, hygiene wipes, cleaning wipes, cleansing pads and sanitary products.