When Anne Ryman began her job as cleaner Swale campaign co-ordinator in 1987 she was taken on with a three-month contract.

Little did she know her role to develop an anti-litter campaign in the borough would grow and result in her becoming Swale Borough Council's environmental projects officer - a post she has held for the last 10 years.

In that time she came up with many schemes to make residents more green, from setting up community recycling schemes and visiting schools with Arnie the environmentally-friendly aardvark to talk about recycling, to clearing estates of litter and fly-tipping by taking refuse lorries to residents.

But her greatest achievement was getting a Sittingbourne firm to agree to recycling drink cans.

She said: "Recycling was in its infancy. It was really just glass and paper then but I was able to develop drink cans recycling with APM Metals.

"In those days, steel and aluminium cans had to be kept separate and we used small magnets to test them all.

"Things developed from the small amounts we used to go round picking up and paying people 1p for each aluminium can, to today when all cans can be collected in blue bins."

Despite her passion for the job the 64-year-old decided it was time to call it a day and retire.

To mark her last day, she carried out a street clean in Barrow Grove, Sittingbourne, on April 4.

She added: "I have always liked the job because it encouraged originality.

"From the beginning nothing was ever written down that had to be done. It was always find work and develop ideas. I like developing ideas and being original.

"It has never been a boring job, always different. I have been everywhere and met many great people."

Anne plans to spend her spare time continuing to run a Brownie pack and as a volunteer guide at the South Foreland Lighthouse.

She added: "I am about to start volunteer work at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. I also plan to travel aboard more and go to the gym and swim."

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Anne's role hasn't always gone smoothly. One of her biggest disasters was a clean-up in Warden Bay.

She said: "People were encouraged to put out any household items for collection - the idea being that it would stop fly-tipping - and that Saturday Warden went to town.

"It was without exaggeration sinking under the weight of the rubbish.

"We had two refuse vehicles out but obviously time was limited as we had to return to Sittingbourne tip which closes at 4pm.

"In the end we went out for some on Sunday as well. Then it took one of our contractors until Thursday to clear it all. If I recall correctly I think it was 59 tons collected in the end.

"Why it was so bad or where all this rubbish came from we never knew. Luckily it never happened there or anywhere else again but the men certainly earned their money that weekend."