Dumped shopping trolleys, take-away food wrappers and drink cans were among the items volunteers collected for responsible disposal and recycling.

“It’s very satisfying,” Lorn resident David Powis said.

For a second year Mr Powis led his team of eight volunteers around the RH Taylor reserve at Lorn next to the Belmore Bridge.

The haul included 10 bags of general rubbish, five bags of recycling, one shopping trolley and three syringes that were carefully retrieved from beneath the bridge and placed into a sharps container.

“I walk the dog along here every morning and it saddens me seeing all this rubbish,” Mr Powis said.

While on those walks he said there was only so much rubbish he could collect.

“It’s just overwhelming how much there is,” he said.

“It needs a good once-a-year clean up to get rid of it all.”

Volunteers worked on 18 official sites across the Maitland City Council area.

Clean Up Australia Day started 25 years ago.

In that time volunteers have donated more than 27.2 million hours by removing an estimated 288,650 tonnes of rubbish from 145,754 sites across the country.

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