A Penryn resident is waging a one-woman war on the rubbish which blights the town every Tuesday morning ahead of the weekly refuse collections.

Over the last month Carina Denning has been up at the crack of dawn with a notebook and pen, to record which houses have been putting out their waste without using a seagull proof sack or covering it with a blanket.

Carina is taking action because she is disgusted by the amount of rubbish that gets strewn around town every Tuesday morning, as gulls attack the black bin bags to get at food.

She said: "It's just vile. It's not an image Penryn wants.

"Shops are closing down all the time at the moment and we need to do more for the town."

She added: "I live in Penryn, I was born in Penryn, as was all my family. I love our little town even though we haven't got a lot left but what we have got left we should be looking after."

So Carina has started taking down addresses which have unprotected bags left outside, along with photographs of the mess in the streets, and she has even started looking for names and addresses in the rubbish on the road.

She said: "The council say they have got to have addresses out of the bags, as even if I take the addresses and photographs there is no proof it's come from [that] house."

The Packet joined Carina on her regular Tuesday morning walk through the main streets of Penryn, and she noted that several houses had bought the seagull proof sacks or covered their rubbish since the week before, when she put up a post on Facebook group Penryn Legends.

She said one building with multiple occupants had cleared up their front yard, which was usually much more untidy, and said that usually there was a pile of rubbish from several West Street houses, but that had also been tidied up.

She said: "People are saying the council should supply the bags for them, and I say why should they? It's £3, if it keeps the streets tidy at the end of the day £3 is nothing.

"If they can't afford the £3, all they have got to do is put a sheet over it like I do.

"I guess I'll just keep on doing it until the council takes note and sends people letters"

A spokesperson for Penryn Town Council said: "We sell seagull proof sacks for £3.50 in the office.

"We can pass on any reports of people putting their rubbish out early to Cornwall Council who are able to issue fines if sufficient evidence is provided."