Living along the Princes Highway presents its pitfalls. 

Every fortnight, along with mowing the lawns, dusting, and raking the leaves, Cindy cleans up other people’s mess by the bin load.

The most common finds are rubbish from takeaway stores at South Nowra such as KFC and McDonald’s.

This fortnight’s haul was packed full of used liquor cans and coffee cups.

She usually puts the rubbish straight into the council bin, but this time she filled a large bag, to show her colleagues the extent of the problem, and was shocked at how full it was.

She’s not alone – her neighbours have the same problem.

As the festive season approaches, and families pack into cars and head south on holidays, it’s only going to get worse.

The amount of rubbish doubles during school holiday times and long weekends.

“What concerns me is there was a cigarette lighter thrown out too,” Cindy said.

“There are a lot of leaves in the drain, it could easily turn into a bushfire.

“I can’t understand why they don’t just take the rubbish home with them and put it in the bin.”

If you see someone littering from their vehicle, you can report them to the EPA, but it must be within 14 days of the offence.

Make sure you jot down the number plates of the vehicle in question.

Fines from $250 for an individual and $500 for a corporation can be issued from your report.

Each year, over 25,000 tonnes of litter is tossed in NSW.

For every Australian there are five pieces of litter on our beaches.

Around 50 million plastic bags enter our litter stream every year.

Thirty-three per cent of turtles and 43 per cent of sea birds have ingested plastics.