Until now the job has been done by hand, and workers have been at risk from high-speed traffic.

The truck, with its long hose and eight-inch nozzle, is becoming a familiar sight alongside the M5 motorway in Gloucestershire.

The device, hand-controlled to protect wildlife, is powerful enough to suck up things the size and weight of a house brick.

The truck has been nicknamed Noo Noo

Chris Pope of the Highways Agency said: "We have to pick up litter from the side of the motorway and it is an environmental hazard and a safety hazard.

"Previously the men would pick up the litter by hand and put it into sacks.

"Using this vacuum machine they just point the nozzle at it and up it goes.

"Our verges are actually wildlife havens and we are very keen that we develop them in an environmentally-friendly way."

The truck, which has been nicknamed Noo Noo after the Teletubbies' cleaning device, has a two-person crew, one driving and one vacuuming.

Bottles and cans

It can cover about two-and-a-half miles of verge (4.1 kilometres) a day.

The work is being concentrated on problem areas such as stretches of the M5 near the Michaelwood services.

The area gets littered with bottles, cans, wrappers, plastic bags and dirty nappies thrown out of car windows.

The clean-up teams who used to have to walk along the hard shoulders and climb up banks now work behind the truck's crash protector.