More than 680,000 volunteers across 6,834 sites removed an estimated 15 thousand tonnes of rubbish from parks, beaches, bushland, suburban streets and waterways across the nation.

School students donned hats and gloves on Friday to clean up their local areas.

Students from Bodalla Public School cleaned up Potato Point Beach; Narooma Public School tidied Surf Beach and local parks and Tilba Public School students spent the morning scouring a large part of Tilba (Haxstead) Beach.

Eurobodalla Shire Council Clean-Up Project officer, Maree Cadman joined years 3 to 5 Tilba students on the beach.

"From a distance the beach looks spectacularly pristine - crystal clean water, dune vegetation with a backdrop of Guluga mountain," Ms Cadman said.

"However the students were amazed to find a variety of small rubbish items, including fishing gear, rope, plastic wrappers, plastic bottle top lids and small bits of plastic foam and glass."

Since the national event started in 1990, 17.7 million Australians have donated more than 35 million hours towards cleaning up the environment and removed the equivalent of 365 thousand ute loads of rubbish from 185, 000 registered sites across the country.