Let’s be honest, we don’t always think much about what goes down the sink. Except when it’s blocked. Some assume it’s all treated somewhere, some override care with blasé. Those “some” become “far too many” on a building or maintenance job, professional or DIY.

Watch a painter wash his brushes in the ocean and a rethink will hit you:

The film was directed and edited by Gareth Carr.

“When we (the team at All Good Collective) met Andrew Crimston, founder of Washbox, about a year ago, we had that “oh f**”* moment,” Max Guena, founder and creative director of All Good Collective confessed. “Andrew, with decades in the paint and construction world, told us the truth; most of the wash-water from tools, paint, and grout — full of PFAS “forever chemicals”, microplastics, and fine solids — flows through treatment plants unequipped to stop them, straight into rivers and oceans.

All Good Collective turned their personal wake-up call into the campaign, Green Sink Initiative, for Washbox, the world’s first closed-loop wash station for construction, including its rallying cry, Sink Better, and the shocking visual of a painter washing his brushes and bucket at the beach.

The Green Sink Initiative makes one simple connection: what you rinse away doesn’t disappear; it flows straight into the fishes’ living (and dining) room.

The campaign’s first audience is tradies, builders, painters, and maintenance crews, but the message reaches everyone, including the DIY weekenders who just want to finish their home reno without wrecking the environment.

The campaign has four pillars of action:

• Awareness: Revealing the dirty truth behind clean tools through creative storytelling and a few uncomfortable truths.

• Education: Partnering with the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) to train over 60,000 professionals in 100 countries.

• Solutions: Washbox’s closed-loop Green Sink wash stations recycle water, capture solids, and save millions of litres of polluted wash-water.

• Compliance & Collaboration: Working with construction industry partners, universities, and policymakers to clean up the sector and prevent liquid waste mismanagement.

“Pollution from wash-water doesn’t just vanish; it flows to the ocean,” Andrew Crimston stated. “With the Green Sink Initiative, we’re helping everyone — from contractors to DIYers — understand the connection and ‘sink better.’ Because when a better way exists, people change.”

Washbox is also developing smaller, easy-to-use systems for DIYers and renovators, so everyone can enjoy their projects without flushing the ocean.

The global campaign, officially launched during Climate Week NYC, is designed to make an invisible problem impossible to ignore. Washbox also announced its Clinton Global Initiative at Climate Week that commits to eliminating 50 million litres of construction wash-water pollution in five years and train 100,000 professionals in sustainable liquid-waste practices. Recognised as part of the United Nations Ocean Decade, the initiative is supported by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, Western Sydney University, and Deakin University.