The project is the result of the signing of a collaboration agreement between the Consistory, Hidralia, Axaragua and Cetaqua Andalucía.

Rincón de la Victoria will become a pioneer municipality in the treatment of wipes in wastewater with the first surveillance system using smart cameras to detect the accumulation of solid waste in the urban sanitation and drainage network.

The general manager of Hidralia, Matilde Mancha, the Mayor of Rincón de la Victoria, Francisco Salado, the Councilor for the Environment, Sergio Díaz, and the president of the Commonwealth of Axarquía, José Juan Jiménez, have presented today the iONWipes Project, which aims to improve urban drainage and sanitation systems to optimize the maintenance of wastewater pumping stations and study the possible effects of rainfall or seasonality on the waste accumulation

The councilor has stressed the importance of this research and development project to "intervene in advance and solve one of the major problems of companies and municipalities, which involves a cost of 200 million in debugging work."

Likewise, Salado has shown its commitment to “put on the table the technical means to make it possible for the sanitation network of Rincón de la Victoria and the entire Axarquia to be as efficient as possible, but it is also essential to raise public awareness of throwing away the wipes in their corresponding place, not only to avoid negative economic consequences for municipal coffers, but to protect the environment”.

Jiménez has thanked the City of Rincón de la Victoria for its commitment to this “so necessary” collaboration and has informed that “of the 717 tons of urban waste collected in the wastewater treatment plants in the region, 370 were of wipes, with all the expenses that It involves collection, cleaning, personnel and breakdowns, among others ”. Also, the president has expressed "the need to continue working for the sustainability of the environment and that our region is leading in the recycling and sanitation of our water cycle."

For its part, Mancha explained that, “beyond the work carried out by Hidralia to prevent periodic cleaning of pumps and visual inspections of the operators to detect any extraordinary accumulation of waste, we are committed to go further in terms of digitalization and innovation through from the Cetaqua research center, which will carry out the analysis, diagnosis and evolution of this project with the purpose of alleviating the damage caused by the wipes in the sanitation system and that in its last consequences entails the discharge into the environment ”.

The project, a regional pioneer, according to Hidralia, will be developed in three phases. A first where different equipment is being tested at the laboratory level to check the correct functioning of the cameras in high humidity environments. A second one where video surveillance systems will be installed in two locations: in the main wastewater pumping located in Torre de Benagalbón, which will be managed by Axaragua, and in the pumping located in Cala Flores in La Cala del Moral by Hidralia , and a third phase where the images captured by a camera inside the pump will be analyzed to determine the area occupied and the composition of floating solid waste.

The information extracted from the images by the local processing team will be sent to a cloud server for storage and analysis. All information will be accessible to operators through a web interface.

The project has a duration of 9 months and is financed by Hidralia with an investment of 35,284 euros. The company will also carry out a citizen awareness campaign on the problem generated by the misuse of the wipes.

Cetaqua Andalucía is a foundation created in 2014 by Hidralia, the University of Malaga (UMA) and the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) whose objective is to guarantee the sustainability and efficiency of the water cycle considering territorial needs, in addition to applying knowledge academic to water and the environment to create products and services that benefit society.