Keep New Zealand Beautiful chairwoman Alexandra Davids says Christchurch's "Garden City" reputation has been "lacking" since the earthquakes.

In the space of three hours a team of volunteers scouring central Christchurch for litter managed to fill around 24 big black rubbish bags.

Cigarette butts, fast food wrappers, plastic straws, condoms and hypodermic needles were among the discarded items cluttering up the streets.

The Garden City has long had a reputation for beauty, but Alexandra Davids, who was appointed chairwoman of Keep New Zealand Beautiful last month, is worried that is being eroded.

"A lot of people come to Christchurch and expect to see the beautiful Garden City and I think that's been lacking a bit since the earthquakes," she said.

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The immediate drive post-disaster was repairing and rebuilding damaged infrastructure, something that took precedence over beautification.

However, Davids, who is also chairwoman of Keep Christchurch Beautiful, said the reputation was important to the city – both as a marketing device and as a source of local pride.

Seven years on from the September 2010 earthquake, she identified several challenges standing in the way of Christchurch becoming "a truly beautiful city".

One of the major obstacles, especially in the central city, was litter.

The Keep Christchurch Beautiful clean-up in September was surprising for the amount of litter 15 volunteers collected in just three hours, Davids said.

"If you just pick up a couple pieces of rubbish a day you can actually make a difference to the wider community."

The city also suffered from the presence of empty lots: the former sites of demolished buildings were often left to become overgrown, or converted into poorly maintained car parks, she said.

"I just think they're a real let-down for the city and it's not hard to maintain them."

However, the earthquakes had also created opportunities for new buildings to be erected with features like living walls and roof gardens.

Furniture dumping – possibly as a result of people being put off by dumping fees – was also an issue in parts of the city; and Davids said regular maintenance of public places and riverside mowing seemed to have slipped.

"But we have some people in our communities who are using their own initiative to go out and clean up those public spaces," she said.

Keep Christchurch Beautiful supported community groups to source trees for planting efforts, as well as maintaining a database of volunteers ready to help out with clean-up efforts.

Davids pointed to the creation of an urban forest on the lower Linwood College fields as one of a number of initiatives being taken to beautify the city and encourage ecological diversity.

"It's about creating networks of native tree areas and planting areas around the city so we can actually try start getting back some native wildlife."

Asked what successful beautification for Christchurch would look like, Davids replied it was simple: "Clean, green and a really tidy, beautiful place for people to be."