‘Make wet wipes no longer news’, new environmental awareness campaign

The water management concessionaire, Hidraqua, and Benidorm City Council have launched the environmental awareness campaign ‘Make wet wipes no longer news’. The Councillor for the Water Cycle, José Ramón González de Zárate, and the territorial manager of Hidraqua, Ciriaco Clemente, have presented this campaign in Elche Park, which is already active today.

González de Zárate explained that the discharge of wipes into the toilet causes “significant” problems and breakdowns in the sewer network with a high environmental and economic cost. In fact, according to the data provided today, during 2024 nearly 300 tons of wipes were removed in the city's pumping stations and treatment plants, waste that accounts for 90% of all solids intercepted in wastewater. In addition, the cost of the environmental impact of their presence in the sea due to relief from rain and broken pipes, where their removal may be impossible, is not calculable.

Apart from the environmental cost, the presence of wipes requires costly repairs to the sanitation and waste treatment system. Thus, the cost of managing their extraction and final destination of the wipes is more than 75 euros per tonne. If we add to this the impact of additional cleaning of pipes unblocking, breakdowns, obstructions and discharges into the environment due to their presence, the figure rises to 400,000 euros per year.

Hence, the councillor has pointed out, the decision has been made to “a powerful awareness campaign” that will be deployed “in the media, but also through the screens installed throughout the city and in the rest of the City Council's media and supports” to reach the maximum number of residents and visitors.

For his part, the territorial manager of Hidraqua has indicated that “we carry out environmental awareness actions throughout the year. In the area of ​​purification and assuming that the treatment plants do their job about the management of wipes in dry weather without any problem - they are collected and treated, of course, at a high cost - however, due to heavy rains it is possible that the protection barriers that we put in place are exceeded and effects appear that we do not want on our coast. Therefore, the best measure is public awareness and collaboration in something that affects us all, environmentally and economically.”

Clemente recalled the last major breakdown that Benidorm experienced a few months ago due to the use of wet wipes at the Severo Ochoa pumping station, where Hidraqua workers spent days unblocking the pipes of the new pumping line, which had been blocked by the thousands of sanitary wipes thrown in and trapped in the system.

Environmental awareness

Focused on preventing misuse of the toilet by citizens, especially problems arising from the disposal of wet wipes, “Make wipes stop being news” is part of the periodic campaigns that Hidraqua carries out about the proper use of sanitation, always emphasizing two axes. On the one hand, an environmental message and prevention of a problem generated in homes, but which ends up affecting the sanitation of the city with periodic blockages, inconvenience to citizens and the arrival of waste into the natural environment during episodes of rain. Thus, in the city of Benidorm, nearly 300 tons of wipes were removed in the city's pumping stations and treatment plants during 2024, waste that accounts for 90% of all solids intercepted in wastewater. In addition, the cost of the environmental impact of its presence in the sea due to relief due to rain and broken pipes, where it may be impossible to remove them, is not calculable.

Remove wet wipes from newspaper headlines: A message for all media.
Focusing on the big headlines generated in the different media after episodes of heavy rain, this awareness-raising communication action emphasises citizen collaboration to "remove wet wipes from the headlines" of local media, thanks to the correct use of the toilet; to ensure that wipes do not occupy the information space. Based on two initial graphics along these lines and with the city's beaches in their best condition as an image, the campaign proposes adaptations for multiple dissemination channels, so that the message is spread as widely as possible. Among others, with the collaboration of Benidorm City Council, the campaign is included for dissemination during the next few weeks on electronic media managed by the entire city.