Ms Hamilton-Smith was startled by the amount of rubbish which had accumulated at the northeast corner of the lake - near Kully Bay - and rolled up her sleeves to do something about it.

Connecting with like- minded folks via social media, she has organised seven clean-ups over four months but wants to take it bigger.

"There area seem to have been neglected for some time," she said. "There was lots of litter, but also big items like tyres, dumped furniture, and household items like an oven and tiles."

And one other thing stood out like the proverbial: Bunnings logos, on promotional materials and rubbish from the hardware giant across Northcliff Drive.

Ms Hamilton-Smith got in contact with the store manager - and instead of a brush-off, he took her concerns seriously, and wanted to help take responsibility.

As as result, he and some other Bunnings staff members will be joining in the next Kully Bay cleanup - this coming Tuesday morning.

Ms Hamilton-Smith was well impressed.

"He's got a lot of things going on all the time but he's made the time to get involved in this," she said.

"It's not just government, it's not just business, it's not just the community - we all have to be part of the solution."

She said Wollongong City Council had given great support - supplying gloves and picking up the rubbish once it had been collected.

But the state Crown Lands department, not so much.

"Their response was, 'the bed of the lake is Crown Land, Crown Lands really has no control over what people put into the water and it's very hard for us to get it back out because we have no field staff at all'. Pretty ordinary," she said.

To join the clean-up, meet at the car park across Northfields Dr from Bunnings, from 9am Tuesday.