Litter in Canberra's creeks, river and lakes accounted for two-fifths of the 248.6 tonnes of rubbish removed by Clean Up Australia volunteers last year, the organisation's chairman and founder Ian Kiernan said.

An average of 646 items was found discarded in our waterways last Clean Up Australia Day, with cigarette butts accounting for a third of all rubbish removed, the report showed.

This is a jump of 60 per cent on the amount of rubbish from previous year, making our water 45 per cent "dirtier" than those in NSW and 47.5 per cent more those in Victoria, Mr Kiernan said.

"They're the worst in the country. This is a very serious situation and one that can easily be fixed by the attention of Canberrans. Cigarette butts are still the most common item found in the water sadly. People need to take personal responsibility," he said.

That responsibility begins by tossing your rubbish in the bin and not on the ground or in the gutter, Clean Up Australia's chief officer Terri-Ann Johnson said.

"Every single piece of rubbish that is dropped on the ground is likely to end up in the waterways," she said.

"You've got beautiful waterways and a very high proportion of the rubbish found is being extracted for them so we really need to stop it at the source and that means don't drop it in the first place."

Because Canberra's waterways are like strainers for the Murrumbidgee River, Canberra's Clean Up Australia volunteer Lesley McGrane said Lake Tuggeranong is choking on beer cans, bottle lids and straws washed down from suburbia - and its wildlife is too.

"Sometimes you see the rings from bottles stuck around ducks. I know people who've found animals here dead with rubbish stuck in their stomachs. There's a family of swans on here and I'm surprised that they're still actually here because it's so polluted, especially when the blue green algae is in the water," she said.

While the number of beverage containers found dropped slightly (37 per cent of the total rubbish count in 2014 and 20.6 per cent in 2015) Mr Kiernan said this could be decreased even further by adopting a container deposit scheme in the ACT.

"We want to put pressure on the industry to take more responsibility for the waste they are manufacturing and selling," he said.

But it's not only our waterways which are suffering.

The report revealed rubbish picked up in parks accounted for close to a quarter of all litter items found in the ACT last year.

And despite a ban on single-use plastic bags in effect for almost five years, plastic bags still accounted for 4.9 per cent of rubbish surveyed.

Close to 6000 volunteers spent 11,644 hours picking up rubbish at 113 sites across Canberra.

Clean up Australia Day is on March 6. Schools Clean Up Day is On March 4 while Business Clean Up Day is on March 1.