On April 10, 2022, part of our team took to the banks of the Marne. Accompanied by friends and children, they donned gloves, armed themselves with tongs and garbage can liners, and set out with a clear objective: to clean up the pollution.

Like the German association K.R.A.K.E*, we wanted to take responsibility and, above all, take the time to express our gratitude to nature. York found out about this association through one of his former colleagues, when he was still working as a graphic designer in advertising . Instead of doing it on my own, I decided to find out more, because I was well aware that I was far from being the first to put forward this idea". That's how our author-illustrator met Christian Stock, actor and president of K.R.A.K.E.

How did K.R.A.K.E. come into being?

"I was in the middle of a shoot in Nepal in 2014, and I saw how much the locals were throwing their garbage into the river," explains Christian Stock. This realization followed him all the way back to Germany. Naturally, the activist actor began to clean up the banks of the Rhine. At first, he acted alone, then with a few friends, before launching an appeal via Facebook, "because I don't want the living creatures in our rivers and oceans to die because of our waste". The association has now been in existence for more than two years and has over 270 members. Every weekend, around 50 a year, K.R.A.K.E organizes garbage collection actions, bringing together an average of 40 to 90 people. "On special occasions, we reach 800 people".

A few photos illustrating some of the actions of K.R.A.K.E (Cologne, Germany) 

The association doesn't stop there, as it preciously keeps all the collected waste in a "Müllseum", a museum of garbage. That's where York went with MissionH₂O- The Explosion vol. 1 under his arm. "Our motivations are similar, StarPeace and K.R.A.K.E are a perfect match," concludes Christian Stock. It's a match that's driving us forward, as our two entities are planning to get together for a joint event at which you, too, will be welcome.

A small part of the StarPeace team and friends at the very first waste collection event in Créteil (94).

*K = Kolner (Cologne) / R = Rhein (Rhine) / A = Aufräum (cleaning) / K = Kommando (commando) / E = Enheit (unit). KRAKE is therefore "a commando unit for cleaning the Rhine in Cologne".