Algeria's anti-government protests have swept through the country's towns and cities and toppled its aging ruler. But unlike previous mass movements, demonstrators have been careful not to tear their country up.

In a a powerful symbol of the movement's peaceful spirit, after massive pro-democracy demonstrations every week the protesters themselves have been roaming the streets picking up bottles, papers and other detritus left behind.

After events like the latest protest on Friday, when the boulevards of Algiers thronged with so many people that it took hours to traverse a few blocks, residents have done their duty to leave roads as they found them.

After the protests started on February 22 against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his entourage, organisers started sending messages on Facebook calling for demonstrators to avoid violence and clean up after themselves.

"We're volunteers. We organized ourselves after appeals on social networks. The shop owners give us free garbage bags. We have formed several groups," said Abdellah Debaili, 36, a cleanup worker from the working class Algiers neighborhood of Hussein Dey Est.