FIND IT. FIX IT. RESTORE OUR WATERWAYS.

FIND IT. FIX IT. RESTORE OUR WATERWAYS.

Somewhere in your town, a washing machine is plumbed into the wrong pipe and pouring dirty water straight into a river. Nobody can see it. Our dogs can smell it.

How It Works · Support Our Mission

Pollution hiding in plain sight.

Most homes have two separate drainage systems.

Foul drainage carries wastewater from sinks, showers, toilets and washing machines away for treatment.

Surface water drainage carries rainwater away, and often runs straight into the nearest river or brook.

When a household appliance is plumbed into the wrong one, untreated wastewater flows into the river every time it is used. These are called drainage misconnections, and they can go unnoticed for years.

Understand the Problem

A dog's nose. A cleaner river.

A drainage network can serve hundreds of properties. Tracing one bad connection through it is slow, expensive work.

A trained dog does it by scent. Our dogs screen accessible surface water drains and tell us which ones are carrying wastewater, narrowing a whole catchment down to the drains that matter. No excavation, no disruption, no guesswork.

We record every indication, map the pollution pathway and work back towards the source.

From finding the problem to getting it fixed.

A dog indication tells us where to investigate, and investigation confirms the fault before any work is done.

• DETECT: Our dogs screen accessible drains for wastewater contamination.
• LOCATE: We record and map every indication to narrow down the source.
• RECTIFY: Confirmed misconnections are corrected by qualified plumbing professionals.
• VERIFY: We screen again afterwards to check the drain is running clean.

Explore Our Process

Meet the nose behind the mission.

Snipe is a rescue spaniel with a remarkable working history. He helped pioneer water leak detection for the UK water industry, finding leaks buried underground that conventional methods missed. After an accident ended that career, he came back to training for a new challenge: finding the pollution entering our rivers.

Meet the Team

Cleaner rivers need people working together.

• For water companies and environmental organisations: Know you have a contaminated outfall but not where it starts? Let's talk about a pilot survey.
• Spotted something yourself?: A drain that smells, or a brook running grey after rain. Tell us where, and we will add it to the places we are watching.
• For communities and supporters: Help us find hidden pollution and get it fixed.

Discuss a Pilot · Report a Pollution Concern · Support Our Mission

What we are up to.

Updates from training, surveys and the work as it develops.

All Updates

Wear your support for cleaner waterways.

Explore our nature-inspired clothing collection, made from organic cotton in a renewable energy powered factory.

Explore the Collection