The first edition of the Porcherie Project

“Sois notre Allier” — Be Our Ally

The first edition of the PORCHERIE project

Six months of preparation for six hours of waste collection

“Two tonnes of waste collected over 20 kilometres… and probably just as much still left

behind.”

On Saturday, 26 September 2026, around 40 people gathered in Moulins, France, for this first event.

A first for Brakass Adventure, but above all, the beginning of a project we hope will grow far beyond our own association.

The original idea was to bring together individuals, local authorities, schools, sports clubs, associations, businesses and public services around a common goal: collecting waste in places where few people ever think to look. Places where rubbish can accumulate for years, out of sight, slowly rotting away in silence.

Along all those hard-to-reach stretches of river.

The idea was simple.

Making it happen was another story.

Six months to organise a single day of waste collection

Because accessibility was precisely the issue, our first event was initially planned for a different stretch of the Allier River. The route would have taken us through a protected natural area.

We therefore began identifying and contacting the relevant people and organisations.

We started presenting the project, seeking authorisations, identifying the constraints along the route, finding a school, a water-sports partner, equipment, waste-management solutions, funding and everything else needed to turn a day in the field into a reality.

Then things became complicated.

Regulatory requirements, administrative deadlines, unavailable contacts, protected areas, permits, route changes…

The project had to evolve.

Some people helped us. Others were unable to. Some never replied. Others, who had initially been expected to take part, eventually withdrew from the project.

The message seemed clear: we weren't always being taken seriously.

Our first major “psycho-illogical” obstacle — a deliberate mash-up of psychological and illogical.

And that pretty much set the tone.

The first thing this experience taught us is that environmental urgency and administrative reality don't always speak the same language.

On the one hand, we all know that concrete action to protect our natural environments is becoming increasingly urgent.

On the other, when a small association decides to take action, it quickly discovers a whole chain of rules, contacts, applications, authorisations, constraints and deadlines it may never have anticipated.

These rules presumably exist for good reasons. Protecting natural areas, keeping participants safe, managing navigation and dealing with waste are obviously not things that can simply be improvised.

But for a small organisation starting from scratch, understanding who to contact, in what order and for what purpose can become almost as big an obstacle as the project itself.

That is precisely why we decided to share our experience.

“Sois notre Allier”… or not!

After several months of work and a few changes of direction, the project finally came to life under the name Sois notre Allier. We were told that Porcherie — literally “pigsty” in French — wasn't a particularly appealing name!

The principle was straightforward: get out on the Allier River in canoes, cover several stretches of the river, collect waste accessible from the boats, search the riverbanks, then transport our “haul” to a central collection point where it could be sorted, weighed and removed.

For this first edition, around 40 people took part, including approximately 15 young people aged between 12 and 18.

The canoes were provided by ASPTT Moulins and the Moulins canoe-kayak club.

Neuvy Agricultural High School also joined us, bringing young people into the project and giving the day a genuine educational dimension.

Moulins City Council, the Chézy waste collection centre, the organic shop L'Esperluette, Intermarché Moulins La Madeleine, Leclerc Avermes, the bakery L'Ami des Mies, La paillote Moulins, La Paillote Moulins, Wild Product and several other local organisations also helped make the day possible.

And, of course, there were our volunteers and association members.

Some travelled from different regions of France, occasionally covering hundreds of kilometres, hoping to provide the momentum this shared-interest project needed to get off the ground.

Six hours on the water

In total, we covered two stretches of river over approximately six hours.

Twenty kilometres of river.

Around 40 people.

Dozens of bags filled with rubbish.

Roughly ten cubic metres of waste removed from the river and its banks, representing close to two tonnes in total, according to an estimate by the technical services of Moulins City Council.

Two tonnes in six hours, over just 20 kilometres.

And yet, that may not be the most striking figure.

“We had to leave behind an amount of waste that we estimate to have been at least twice what we managed to remove.”

This estimate is obviously not based on a scientific count of everything left in the water or tangled in the vegetation. It simply reflects what we observed in the field, with our limited resources and despite areas of particularly dense vegetation.

In other words, we left with almost two tonnes of waste, but we also discovered just how much we were unable to collect.

And that is probably where the project really begins to make sense.

A relatively well-preserved river… and yet

The Allier is considered one of the last great wild rivers in Western Europe. Its river basin also plays a major role in supporting Atlantic salmon in the Loire basin.

Regular waste-collection campaigns already take place along the river.

And yet, in just a few hours, we found enough rubbish to fill several skips.

So naturally, a question arises.

What about waterways that receive far less attention?

Smaller rivers. Streams. Isolated stretches of water.

Places where nobody regularly checks what floods have left tangled in the vegetation.

We have no intention of answering that question with a nationwide statistic. But after spending six hours on the Allier, it is difficult not to imagine what might be hiding elsewhere.

The real purpose of the PORCHERIE project

The PORCHERIE project was never intended to become an operation organised exclusively by Brakass Adventure.

Quite the opposite.

“We would love to see other people reproduce what we have just done.”

Thankfully, initiatives like this have existed for a long time. Whether officially organised or informal, they all have their place and their value.

But here's the thing: we often talk about these initiatives for a week, congratulate the participants, applaud their efforts, and then quickly return to our everyday lives, heads down, careful not to look too far beyond our immediate concerns.

Yet cleaning up pollution is a long-term commitment. Given the place consumerism occupies in our societies, the flow of waste is unfortunately unlikely to stop any time soon.

Alongside better education and the obvious need to rethink the way we consume, we can also take collective action on the ground.

Practical, human-scale initiatives. Small operations that anyone can organise.

So, rather than simply doing our bit once or twice a year, we want to share our experience and make things easier for those who have the determination and courage to take on this kind of project today.

You don't need to be a large association with substantial resources to get started.

Our first edition taught us precisely the opposite.

We started with limited resources and plenty of uncertainty.

We faced refusals.

We had to follow up with people, sometimes more often than we would have liked.

We had to improvise and change our route several times.

And we often felt we had to keep proving, again and again, that our project simply deserved a chance to exist.

But in the end, the project went ahead — and turned out to be something of a success.

So we decided to put our notes on paper

Over the months, we accumulated emails, lists, contacts, spreadsheets, applications, authorisations, mistakes and solutions…

All that work could have stayed on our computers. Instead, we decided to turn it into something useful.

We therefore put together a free practical guide to organising a mobile waste-collection operation along a river.

The aim was not to create a universal administrative handbook.

There is no single recipe that works for every river. Every area has its own constraints, regulations, contacts and realities on the ground.

Our goal is much simpler:

“We want to save you the time we lost.”

The guide brings together the main preparation stages, the questions to ask, the people and organisations to identify, the key safety and regulatory considerations, and examples of letters actually used while preparing Sois notre Allier.

It is designed to be easy to consult, adaptable to your local area and useful as a starting point. Naturally, it does not replace the necessary procedures or confirmation from the relevant authorities.

The guide is available free of charge on our website.

Understand before you act

We certainly don't want to give the impression that organising this kind of project is easy. It isn't.

But neither do we want the complexity of organising it to become an excuse for doing nothing.

There is a significant difference between “it's complicated” and “it's impossible”.

The key is probably to accept that everything won't happen in a matter of weeks, and that organising the very first edition is often the hardest part.

Once you understand the main stages, you need patience and determination.

Start early. Do your research. Be prepared to change your route. Ask for advice, follow up with people and find competent help in areas you don't fully understand.

And above all, accept that you don't have to do everything alone. You'll save yourself a considerable amount of time.

A project made to be replicated

We have deliberately designed PORCHERIE as a model that others can reproduce.

Our ambition isn't to organise ten, twenty or fifty waste-collection days across France ourselves.

We would much rather see fifty associations each organise their own event.

All our waterways are affected by some form of pollution, and we all know a river or stream somewhere near home.

Like an older sibling looking after a younger one, we encourage everyone to reach out and care for the waterways that helped life develop on this planet.

If every local group knows a stretch of river, a canoe club, a school, a town hall, a waste collection centre and a few dozen volunteers willing to lend a hand, then this model could spread much faster than we might imagine.

That is precisely why we chose to share our experience.

“Use it. Adapt it. Change it. Improve it. Do better than us.”

If you're a small association, a local group or simply a few motivated people, we sincerely hope this document will help you move from an idea to action more quickly.

So, what's next?

Sois notre Allier was only a first attempt.

We don't yet know how far the PORCHERIE project will take us.

But this first edition has strengthened our belief that organising this kind of initiative is possible, and that there is a genuine desire among people to take action.

Sometimes, all it takes is creating the opportunity.

The hummingbird fable reminds us that an individual action can seem insignificant in the face of a problem of this scale. But there is no room for fatalism.

If everyone does their part, the fire can become much easier to bring under control.

“Doing nothing is a sure way to lose the fight.”

So start small. Start imperfectly. But start.

And if, tomorrow, somewhere in France, this experience inspires a local group to head down a river and pull out the rubbish, then the PORCHERIE project will already have fulfilled part of its mission.

The PORCHERIE practical guide

How to organise a mobile waste-collection operation along a river

A guide based on our experience organising Sois notre Allier, the first edition of the PORCHERIE programme.

Available to download free of charge at [brakass.com](https://brakass.com/).

Thank you to everyone who made this first edition possible

Our thanks go to Moulins City Council, ASPTT Moulins and the canoe-kayak club, Neuvy Agricultural High School, the Chézy waste collection centre, L'Esperluette, L'Ami des Mies, Intermarché Moulins La Madeleine, Leclerc Avermes, La paillote Moulins and Wild Product, as well as the FFPS and GN Carpe for their support.

And above all, thank you to all the volunteers, some of whom travelled from the other side of France to spend a few hours on the Allier collecting rubbish that, in some cases, had been there for years.

The Brakassés