By Lynn Williams

Municipal staff had their hands full cleaning up beaches in Nelson Mandela Bay on Wednesday after a record 360 000 people flocked to the sea to celebrate New Year‘s Day.

Armed with black bags, the cleaning teams picked up 40 tons of waste, including empty liquor bottles left behind by revellers.

Municipal spokesman Lourens Schoeman said 1 720 plastic bags of empty liquor bottles, plastic bottles and cans were collected by the cleaners.

Cleaning staff were deployed at Wells Estate, Hobie, Pollok and Kings beaches. Most of the bottles collected were from Wells Estate.

Workers who started at Kings Beach cleaned up that area and worked their way along the beachfront past Willows.

Schoeman said the amount of litter had not shown a marked increase compared with last year, despite the large increase in the number of revellers.

“Cleaning up was hard work. We did not have a magic wand to make all the dirt disappear. All beaches except Wells Estate were clean and tidy again shortly before midday.

“Teams of cleaners will be back at their posts today to clean up all over again.”