Two men are walking across France to bring awareness to the number of discarded face masks that are littering the country.

The men, one British and the other French, started their journey from Marseille to Paris on October 1. 

Altogether, they will walk a total of 880km.

Along their journey, they have been meeting people and showing them their growing collection.

"People think that when they throw away a mask, it's nothing. If we put under their nose the sum of all those masks, it doesn't matter. But does it?," said Frédéric Munsch, a photojournalist and one of the pair.

"In the end, it makes whole bunches of masks. We walk around with bundles that are full. When we arrive at the entrance of the cities, we find heaps and heaps, hundreds, even thousands of them!"

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The duo have also stopped at schools to talk to children about the importance of properly disposing of face masks.

"I asked the children, 'have you ever seen someone throwing masks on the ground?'" said Edmund Platt, the other man on this journey. "All of them, 90 pupils, said 'yes.'" 

The two, nicknamed "the English snail" and "the Marseille boar," have been walking along the TGV line, France's high-speed rail route.

When they are not camping in the woods or sleeping in car parks, they have been staying with people they meet along the way.

They are due to arrive in Paris on November 28.

Video editor: Paula Harvey.