Apart from the 51 people registered with Young Tidy Towns, many others, including school students, did their bit to make Young a tidier place over the weekend.

A group from the Seventh Day Adventist Church cleaned along the Grenfell Road, filling two one tonne trucks with bags of collected litter.

The Young Fire Brigade and Rural Fire Service lent a hand, starting early and cleaning a long distance along Wombat Road. They collected 16 bags of rubbish, most of which they said was take-away containers tossed out of car windows.

The Rotary Club collected rubbish along Kingsvale Road and to the gates of Chinaman's Dam, leaving the area looking spotless, and many couples and families made good progress on streets around town.

Young Tidy Town publicity officer Marilyn Stemm said there were some areas in town that proved most in need of cleaning.

"From Café de Jour down under the railway bridge was just covered in bottles, drink containers and take away packages, it was amazing," she said.

"Cigarette butts are the absolute worst. Once a cigarette butt is on the ground it is very hard to pick up, they take years to break down and once the rain comes they're washed from the gutter into the creek."

Mrs Stemm said one couple, who spent many hours cleaning Thornhill Street, were saddened to notice four bottles lying along the road the next day.

"I don't know the answer to stopping littering," she said. "The council keeps our parks clean but it's sometimes the streets and highways that get messy from people throwing rubbish out the car window.

"It's not just a problem in Young, its everywhere, but then if we didn't run days like this and if nobody ever cleaned up it would be much worse."

Mrs Stemm said next year the Tidy Towns Committee would start planning earlier, after only forming in November, and would work on more publicity through a letterbox drop.