Plogging Dunedin founder and event organiser Antonia Wood brought her children William and Sophie Macknight so they could understand the importance of keeping the environment clean.
She said about 30 people had joined to help remove refuse from the area, and bags upon bags were piled up as the team organised its collection.
Dunedin Orienteering, the Terra Nova Sea Scouts, Keep Dunedin Beautiful and Plogging Otepoti were among the groups involved in the clean-up effort.
Ms Wood said she had started collecting rubbish while she was out on a daily run, and when she started doing research online she came across "plogging".
Plogging is a combination of jogging and picking up litter.
Ms Wood said it was really encouraging to see so many people getting on board with the clean-up effort, but what her team had collected was a "fraction" of the problem in Dunedin.
"It was ’scusting," her daughter Sophie said.
The purpose of the clean-up was both to sort out part of the temporary problem and create awareness of the rubbish situation in Dunedin, Ms Wood said.
"It’s everywhere, it was on the gutters on either side of the road and loads in the bush," she said.
Despite a big day helping the planet, volunteers and the children were still smiling as they wrapped up and sorted the items into rubbish and recyclables.
In appreciation of their efforts, Sophie and her brother William were given some chocolates.
