Volunteers filled 525 black bags with rubbish — weighing two tonnes — during a countywide litter blitz.

More than 40 community groups collected 350 black sacks of general rubbish and 125 sacks of recyclables.

Fifty sacks of green waste for composting were also collected as green-fingered volunteers tackled overgrown hedges and footpaths in neighbourhoods across the county.

Oxfordshire Waste Partnership (OWP) — representing the city council and four district councils and Oxfordshire County Council — estimated it would have cost local councils more than £20,000 to have carried out the clean-up operation.

Unusual finds included two bicycles, a shopping trolley, two umbrellas, fence posts, several traffic cones and enough scrap metal to fill a skip.

OWP chairman John Tanner said September's Big Tidy Up campaign had been a great success, and praised the efforts of everyone who had taken part.

The Oxford city councillor said: "I hope people will still go on picking up — and not dropping — litter for the rest of the year so we can have an even tidier Oxfordshire."

Councils in Oxfordshire collectively spend more than £1m on litter picking every year.

Mr Tanner added: "It's important we raise awareness about rubbish — it doesn't come from nowhere.

"We create it and we have got to stop thinking somebody else will come and clear it up for us."

Volunteers from St John's Day Service in Banbury — a centre for adults with learning disabilities — took part in one of the final-litter picks of the month-long campaign.

Support worker Teresa Blacker said she had been keen to get involved in an environmental activity and a litter-pick in the town seemed like a great idea.

She said: "The town centre was clean — we were really impressed.

"What surprised us was the amount of cigarette butts people had thrown on the floor, sometimes next to the bins. We must have picked up more than 1,000 butts in just two hours."

OWP provided litter-picking equipment for the volunteers, which they have kept so they can carry out more litter picks in the future.

Mr Tanner said: "From Banbury to Oxford to Didcot, community groups volunteered to help clear up rubbish — it was very impressive."