SWW said the trial was part of its Pollution Incident Reduction Plan, which was “fundamental to seeing our performance improve”, after being rated two out of four stars for its environmental performance.
Helen Dobby, head of environmental performance acknowledged “two stars is not where we want to be”.
She said: “We’re increasing training for new waste water operatives and we have a capital investment programme larger than any we have put forward before, £760m, being put into storm overflow reduction, so this initiative works alongside those things.”
South West Water provides water and sewerage services to Devon and Cornwall, plus small parts of Dorset and Somerset.