Two pals from Lithuania who have started a new life in Manchester were so fed up of the rubbish being thrown into the city centre's canals that they decided to clean them up.

They bought a £50 dinghy, a £20 licence to allow them on the water and some bin bags before setting out into the filthy water of Rochdale Canal where it passes through Castlefield.

The pair spent seven hours collecting about five bin bags of rubbish on Saturday.

Raimondas 'Ray' Kazlauskas, 25, from the pristine town of Rokiskis in Lithuania, came to the UK three years ago but he got fed up of seeing the floating garbage as he walked to his job as an IT developer for a chemist firm in Manchester city centre.

So he and a friend, Evaldas Karosas, 25, from the same town in Lithuania, decided to act, purchasing the dinghy and a licence which gives them permission to take a boat into the canals for a week.

(Image: Joel Goodman)

Following his impromptu clean-up operation, Ray, who lives in the city centre, told the M.E.N: "Every time I went past the canal I saw so much litter. After one year of walking past, it's enough. It's just annoying. There's geese and animals around and it looks a bit disgusting.

"It's enough. I needed to do something. I just got a dinghy and licence."

The two friends retrieved enough rubbish from the canal to fill five bin bags, most of it discarded plastic but also tennis and golf balls, a plant pot, unopened packets of sweets, rubbish-filled bin bags, toys and even a broken kettle and one of those huge tennis balls.

"It was a beautiful day and I had a really good chat with my friend and we met a lot of nice people to be honest, giving us the thumbs up and saying thanks. It was really nice," said Ray, dismissing the effort he had gone to.

He said he had seen geese playing with the rubbish and it had made him feel a 'little bit sad'.

(Image: Joel Goodman)

Asked about his home town, he said: "It's very clean to be honest. I was a bit shocked when I came here. My first impression when I came here was that it was full of rubbish. It was a bit strange for me because I'm used to having a clean environment around. I can live here, of course. It's fine. I believe people behave differently."

He said there were 'enough trash bins to keep it clean the whole time'.

But he has no plans to move.

"It's a lovely city. I love it, of course. It's a really social city. You can meet a lot of new people and learn the language. It's a very nice experience to stay here and I love it here but there are cons and pros," he said.

In February we reported how between April 1, 2018 and the end of January this year, 12,560 fixed penalty notices were issued for littering in the city centre, an eight-fold surge that raised more than £500,000.

(Image: Joel Goodman)

By law, the council may only use this money for its obligations under the Environmental Protection Act i.e. keeping public land free of litter.

The problem has inspired the 'Trash Talk' campaign, where residents and businesses came together in a bid to keep Oxford Road and Oxford Street clean.

Last year, the Keep Britain Tidy charity joined forces with town hall bosses to make Manchester the country’s first ‘Tidy City’ by 2020, engaging the public and businesses in the fight against litter, dog-fouling and fly-tipping.

This saw 7,000 Mancunians supporting 200 clean-up events.