Mount Intermediate students are picking up rubbish this week as part of the nationwide initiative - Keep New Zealand Beautiful.

Students from Room Four at the school are focusing on sustainability as part of their study for this term.

Mount Intermediate students with bags of rubbish collected from around the community.

'We're taking part in Keep New Zealand Beautiful week which is a nationwide event open to everyone, in a bid to make people more proactive and take responsibility for our country,” says teacher Marcie Hintz.

'We have named our event "I am Guardian" as this is the overarching concept of our study. To sustain quality lifestyles we must be guardians globally.”

Marcie says each day this week their class will be going out into the surrounding streets for a big clean up.

'We decided to do the streets instead of the nearby beach area as the beach always seems to be the focus, while the streets are forgotten about. On a recent walk back from a school fieldtrip we noted a large amount of rubbish in the streets.”

Marcie says they have already collected a shocking amount of rubbish from around the Intermediate's local area.