Clean Up Australia Day executive chairman and founder Ian Kiernan said there had been a good turnout in the capital, with about 4600 volunteers across 100 sites collecting 224 tonnes of waste.

''[Canberra is] our national capital, it's very important to us, we must present an unpolluted ACT, it's important and the volunteers are certainly helping us achieve that,'' he said.

Across Australia, 550,000 volunteers gathered at more than 7000 sites and removed more than 16,000 tonnes of rubbish.

Mr Kiernan said the number of volunteers nation-wide had decreased slightly on last year, probably due to heavy rain on the eastern seaboard and in the Northern Territory.

''Most of those people have only postponed it, they haven't cancelled it, so numbers will continue to creep up,'' he said.

In Canberra, teams registered to clean up around the Dickson shops, along the Lake Ginninderra foreshore, behind the Australian War Memorial, at the Mount Ainslie lookout and around the University of Canberra.

Bunnings Warehouse Tuggeranong team member Sue Kelley and three workmates got together to clean up the streets around their store, on the corner of Anketell Street and Oakden Street in Tuggeranong on Friday.

''We all knew Clean Up Australia Day was coming, we take pride in our store so we decided to clean up the surrounding streets,'' Ms Kelley said.

She said they worked for three or four hours and collected six garbage bags full of rubbish, from the streets and under bushes.

''We were surprised that it actually was such a large quantity,'' she said, adding they were keen to clean up again next year. ''It really helps brighten up the community and makes it a more pleasant place for everyone.''