Sunday marked the country's 33rd Clean Up Australia Day, an annual challenge inspiring people to clean up, protect and conserve their local environment.

Roughly 20 sites across Wagga were cleaned today thanks to an assortment of local community groups, including Flowerdale Lagoon.

Wagga City Council environmental education officer Alice Kent led the clean-up, teaming up with Wagga Urban Landcare, the Wagga Bidgee Canoe Club and Charles Sturt University.

Ms Kent said that Flowerdale Lagoon was highlighted as an important site to focus clean-up efforts at because of how much rubbish filters through to the catchment site.

"Because [it's] a catchment area for a lot of our suburbs to the south, all the way up to Jubilee Park, any land-based litter can - through our drainage system or stormwater system - flow through to Flowerdale Lagoon," she said.

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Ms Kent said the rubbish build-up is especially worrying due to the platypus habitat at the lagoon.

"Everything that flushes down that system is going straight into their habitat," she said.

"Platypus are a pretty awesome species for us to have in our local and very urban waterways, so it's something we absolutely need to protect."

Ms Kent said it would be "lovely if we didn't have to do days like this", encouraging the community to put their rubbish into the bin - or hold onto it until they can access one.

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